Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in green in morning session on account of widespread buying despite a weak trend in global markets. Sentiments remained positive with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the Indian government remains committed to bring the economy on the path of fiscal consolidation in the near-to-medium term, setting the target to reduce fiscal deficit to 4.5 per cent by 2025-26. She also said the government is ready to provide additional capital to Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as and when needed and the trajectory of inflation is also shifting down more favourably than anticipated. Market participants paid no heed towards report stated that the sharp economic recovery and rising demand post the second wave of Covid coupled with a spike in global oil prices may pose a challenge for the government in FY22 to maintain fiscal discipline amid good growth in tax revenue.
On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as China's economy grew at the slowest pace in a year in the third quarter, hurt by power shortages, supply bottlenecks and sporadic Covid-19 outbreaks and raising heat on policymakers amid rising jitters over the property sector. Back home, on the sectoral front, stocks related to Aviation industry remained limelight as the Ministry of Civil Aviation allowed airlines to operate at 100 percent capacity. Diamond industry’s stocks too were in action as the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) said gems and jewellery exports rose by 29.67 percent to Rs 23,259.55 crore in September 2021 compared to Rs 17,936.86 crore in the year-ago month.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 61796.84, up by 490.89 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 61624.65 and 61894.33. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.
The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.26%, while Small cap index was up by 0.99%.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 3.31%, Power up by 2.86%, Utilities up by 2.69%, Consumer Durables up by 2.36% and Basic Materials up by 1.93%, while Healthcare down by 0.28% was the lone losing index on BSE.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan Co up by 4.18%, Tata Steel up by 3.04%, Infosys up by 2.87%, ICICI Bank up by 2.43% and Maruti Suzuki up by 2.41%. On the flip side, HCL Technologies down by 1.67%, Asian Paints down by 1.60%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.00%, Indusind Bank down by 0.62% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.54% were the top losers.
Meanwhile, Power ministry in its latest data has showed that India's power consumption grew 3.35 per cent in the first half of October to 57.22 billion units (BU), showing recovery amid coal shortage at electricity generation plants. Last year during October 1-15, power consumption stood at 55.36 BU which was higher than 49.66 BU in the same period in 2019. The data clearly shows that there is recovery in power consumption as well as demand in the country.
Amid the coal shortage at power plants in the country, the peak power shortage moderated to 986 MW on October 15 in sharp contrast to 11,626 MW on October 7. It is to be noted that the 11,626 MW peak power shortage on October 7 was the highest during the first half of this month. Besides, the latest coal stock report for 135 coal-based power plants monitored by Central Electricity Authority for October 13, showed that the number of non-pithead power plants having less than four days of coal stock (supercritical coal stock) reduced to 64 from 69 on October 8 when the daily power consumption touched its peak of 3,900 million units in first half of this month.
Earlier, the power ministry had stated that the capacity of units under outage due to low coal stocks reduced from 11 GW on October 12 to 5 GW on October 14. However, power consumption in September this year witnessed subdued recovery with meagre growth of 1.7 per cent at 114.35 BU mainly due to delayed monsoon (heavy rains). In September last year, power consumption was 112.43 BU, higher than 107.51 BU in the same month of 2019.
The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18499.05, up by 160.50 points or 0.88% after trading in a range of 18445.30 and 18521.10. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.
The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 4.77%, Hindalco up by 4.34%, Titan Co up by 3.78%, JSW Steel up by 3.26% and Infosys up by 3.03%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.70%, HCL Technologies down by 1.67%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.96%, Divi's Lab down by 0.67% and Cipla down by 0.58% were the top losers.
Asian markets were trading mostly in red; KOSPI fell 6.57 points or 0.22% to 3,008.49, Taiwan Weighted dropped 43.15 points or 0.26% to 16,738.04, Shanghai Composite declined 12.41 points or 0.35% to 3,559.96, Straits Times trembled 1.67 points or 0.05% to 3,172.24, Nikkei 225 slipped 70.75 points or 0.24% to 28,997.88, Hang Seng decreased 77.39 points or 0.31% to 25,253.57 and Jakarta Composite soared 33.49 points or 0.5% to 6,666.83.
