Nifty breaks 8,100; Sensex down 150 points

Markets have opened higher tracking strength among the global peers amid easing of Greek debt crises. The narrowing of the government’s current account deficit (CAD) along with MSCI’s decision of deferring inclusion of China A stocks to its benchmark indices which had triggered the continuous outflow of funds by the foreign investors has lifted the sentiments of the market participants.

On the macro-economic front, India’s current account deficit (CAD) declined sharply to $1.3 billion (0.2% of gross domestic product) in the quarter ended March from $8.3 billion (1.6% of GDP) in the quarter ended December.

At 9.35 AM, S&P BSE Sensex was up 91 points at 26,931 levels and the CNX Nifty gained 22 points to trade at 8,146 mark.

Asian equities are trading higher tracking gains in the US markets helped by gains in technology and financial shares. Also, sign of advance in negotiations over Greece’s debts has sparked the rally.

China’s Shanghai Composite index opened 0.5% lower ahead of the release of April fixed asset investment along with May retail sales and industrial production.

The Hang Seng index rebounded 0.7%, a day after tumbling 1.4% amid disappointment that mainland-listed A-shares were not included in the MSCI’s emerging market index.

Japan’s Nikkei bounced back in today’s trade as the yen weakened 0.3 percent versus the US dollar in early Asian trade.

In the US markets, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 236.36 points to 18,000.4, the S&P 500 gained 25.05 points to settle at 2,105.2 and the Nasdaq Composite added 62.82 points to close at 5,076.69.

On the sectoral front, barring BSE Oil & Gas indices, all sectors are in the positive territory with BSE Realty, Healthcare, Capital Goods, Consumer Durables and Bankex trading higher between 0.5-1%.

ICICI Bank is considering raising Rs 50,000 crore via private placement of securities including bonds and non-convertible debentures (NCDs). The stock is up 1.4%.

TCS has become the largest dividend payer among the Indian companies, ahead of Coal India and Oil and Natural gas Corporation. The stock is trading with marginal gains.

Vedanta is set to make an official announcement on Sunday about its merger with wholly owned subsidiary Cairn India. Vedanta is up 1%, however Ciarn India is 1% down.

Reliance Industries is trading marginally higher as Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, likely to announce plans for telecom subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm in its AGM scheduled tomorrow.

Vishal Sikka, the chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Infosys is included in the list of top-50 Highest Rated CEOs in 2015 by career website Glassdoor.Infosys is up 0.6%.

Tata Motors, owner of Jaguar Land Rover, is suffering from the effects of a slowdown in the crucial Chinese market. The stock is down 0.7%.

In the broader market, BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are trading higher by 0.8% each. The market breadth is firm with 933 advances versus 306 declines.

[“source-business-standard.com”]