Sensex Opens Flat; ONGC & Tata Motors Among Top Nifty Gainers

Thu, 31 Dec 09:30 am | Yash Vora, TM Team

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Asian share markets are trading mixed today, with most of the markets in Asia-Pacific such as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, set to close early for New Year's Eve.

The Shanghai Composite is trading up by 0.7% and the Hang Seng is trading up by 0.3%. The Nikkei is down 0.5%.

US stock markets rose overnight as investors bet on a strong economic recovery in 2021 on the back of Covid-19 vaccine rollouts and hopes of bigger fiscal support.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.24%, and the Nasdaq ended up by 0.15%.

European stock markets inched higher on Wednesday as UK's approval of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, bets of more US fiscal aid and large-scale vaccination efforts spurred hopes of a strong recovery in the global economy next year.

Back home, Indian share markets have opened on a flat note.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 17 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading up by 4 points.

ONGC is among the top gainers today. SBI, on the other hand, is among the top losers today.

Both, the BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index have opened the day up by 0.4%.

Sectoral indices are trading mixed with stocks in the IT sector and FMCG sector witnessing selling pressure. Realty stocks are trading in green.

The rupee is trading at 73.20 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading flat at Rs 50,133 per 10 grams.

To know more about gold, you can check out our detailed article on investing in gold here: How to Invest in Gold?

Speaking of stock markets, in his latest video, Co-head of Research at Equitymaster, Rahul Shah talks about his preferred portfolio for 2021 and beyond.

In the video below, Rahul shares his portfolio strategy and the important principles one needs to keep in mind in order to build a market beating portfolio.

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Moving on to stock specific news...

Adani Green Energy is among the top buzzing stocks today.

Adani Green Energy on Wednesday said it has commissioned a 100 megawatt (MW) solar power project at Khirsara in Gujarat.

"Adani Solar Energy Kutchh Two Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL), has commissioned a 100 MW solar power project at Khirsara, Gujarat, ahead of its scheduled commercial operation date (COD) as per its 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA ) with the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam India (GUVNL)," the company said in a statement.

The PPA is priced at Rs 2.44 per kilowatt-hour.

RAMESH DAMANI: "Bullish Investors Will be Trapped in the Market"

With this commissioning, Adani Green's total operational renewable power capacity grows to 2,950 MW, showing a compound average growth rate of 55% since March 2016.

Adani Green Energy share price has opened the day up by 3.2%.

In news from the engineering sector, the board of directors of Rites, a leading infrastructure consultancy and engineering company, at its meeting held yesterday, declared an interim dividend of Rs 5 per share on face value of Rs 10 each amounting to Rs 1.2 billion.

The record date for the purpose of payment of dividend is January 11, 2021.

Rites share price has opened the day up by 1.1%.

Moving on to news from the defence sector, market participants are tracking defence stocks today.

In a major move to boost domestic defence manufacturing, the government on Wednesday approved the export of indigenously-developed surface-to-air Akash missile system and set up a panel to ensure faster approvals for acquisition proposals by various countries.

The Akash missile systems have over 96% indigenous components and the weapon can hit targets at a range of 25 km.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the export version of Akash missiles would be different from the system currently deployed with Indian armed forces.

The decision to export the missile systems was taken at a Cabinet meeting presided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The export of big platforms was minimal. This decision by the Cabinet would help the country improve its defence products and make them globally competitive," the defence minister said.

Singh said the government intends to focus on exporting high-value defence platforms with an aim to achieve a target of US$ 5 billion in defence exports and improve strategic relations with friendly foreign countries.

Note that the government has been majorly focusing on boosting domestic defence production and set a target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore turnover in defence manufacturing by 2025.

In May, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman rolled out a number of reform measures for the defence sector including making separate budgetary outlay to procure Indian-made military hardware, increasing FDI limit from 49% to 74% under the automatic route and generating a year-wise negative list of weapons which won't be imported.

We will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space. Stay tuned.

Speaking of the defence sector, have a look at the chart below which shows the top 5 military spending countries in the world as of 2019:

According to a SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) report, India was the third largest military spending country in the world in 2019.

Here's what Girish Shetty wrote about it in one of the editions of

Co-head of Research at Equitymaster, Tanushree Banerjee keeps a close watch on stocks in the defence space. As per Tanushree, defence will be a big wealth-creating opportunity.

Back in June, she recorded a video about India's best defence stocks.

Tune in to the video here:

To know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

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Indian Share Market Update: Top Gainers and Losers

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