Post Session: Quick Review

Indian equity benchmarks ended higher on Friday. After a positive start, markets remained volatile during morning deals. Traders were worried as India reported on Thursday 54,069 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, data from the health ministry showed. It had 1,321 new fatalities, taking the total death toll to 39,1981. But, indices managed to trade in green for the most part of the trading session, taking support with Crisil’s report that States' revenues is set to cross the Pre-Covid pandemic level in the current fiscal (FY22), driven by higher tax buoyancy, rise in sales tax collections from petroleum products coupled with increase in grants following 15th Finance Commission recommendations. It noted that revenue of the top 10 states had plunged 600 basis points (bps) last fiscal.

Traders remained positive during the trading session, as industry body -- the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) has said that India's share in the global engineering and research and development (ER&D) market is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12-13 per cent to reach $63 billion by 2025. Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh noted that the pandemic has altered the way consumers behave, interact with companies, and how businesses interact. She said ccontactless technologies, analytics, software-led systems are changing how products are designed, redesigned, engineered, and consumed.

Markets added more gains in the second half of the trading session, as Chief Economic Adviser K.V. Subramanian said food inflation is likely to moderate on account of the twin impact of opening up of economic activities and good monsoon and attributed the rise in food prices to restrictions imposed by several states during April-May to deal with the second wave of Covid-19. Besides, asserting that continuous reforms make India a great place to do business, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman invited global investors to take advantage of the recent FDI reforms, the privatisation policy and the performance linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

On the global front, European markets were trading mostly in red. Asian markets ended with a strong note on Friday, after Malaysia's consumer prices inflation eased in May. The data from the Department of Statistics showed that consumer price inflation eased to 4.4 percent in May from 4.7 percent in April. The annual growth was largely driven by the rise in prices of transport by 26.0 percent. Prices for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels rose 3.2 percent. Prices for furnishings, households equipment and routine household maintenance rose 2.1 percent and prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages gained 1.5 percent.

The BSE Sensex ended at 52925.04, up by 226.04 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 52614.49 and 52973.07. There were 19 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining, while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.03%, while Small cap index was up by 0.40%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 2.79%, Bankex up by 1.52%, Basic Materials up by 1.33%, Telecom up by 1.24% and Capital Goods up by 1.22%, while Energy down by 1.78%, Utilities down by 1.04%, Oil & Gas down by 1.04%, Consumer Durables down by 0.69% and FMCG down by 0.49% were the top losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 4.68%, Axis Bank up by 2.97%, SBI up by 2.78%, ICICI Bank up by 2.34% and Bajaj Finserv up by 1.34%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.23%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.67%, NTPC down by 1.48%, Titan Co down by 1.35% and Asian Paints down by 1.15% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, with an aim to boost agricultural and processed food products exports, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) in collaboration with Indian embassy has organized a virtual buyer seller meet (VBSM) with Algeria where key stakeholders in the agricultural value chains from both the countries participated.

Due to the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, the export promotion programmes were not possible to be organized physically. APEDA has been organizing a series of VBSMs with various countries for providing platform to the exporters and importers.

In the VBSM held with trade and government officials from Algeria, the scope of increasing exports of India’s Geographical Indications (GI) certified agricultural products were discussed. Export potential of products including cereals, animal product, non-basmati and basmati rice etc to Algeria were discussed during VBSM.

The CNX Nifty ended at 15860.35, up by 69.90 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 15772.30 and 15870.80. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 4.68%, Axis Bank up by 3.00%, SBI up by 2.78%, ICICI Bank up by 2.36% and Hindalco up by 1.86%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.28%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.67%, NTPC down by 1.65%, Titan Co down by 1.52% and Asian Paints down by 1.29% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European markets were trading mostly in red, France’s CAC decreased 14.42 points or 0.22% to 6,616.73 and Germany’s DAX was down by 31.05 points or 0.2% to 15,558.18. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 6.72 points or 0.09% to 7,116.69.

Asian markets ended with a strong note on Friday tracked by strong finish on Wall Street bourses overnight following President Biden's bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal and the earlier dovish comments by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chair Powell. Janet Yellen said inflation should retreat by year end from its current elevated level, while Powel reassured that the central bank is in no hurry to raise interest rates. Hong Kong shares closed higher following continued buying from mainland investors, who purchased a net 5-billion-yuan worth of Hong Kong shares on Friday.