Markets continue strong rally on BJP's UP win; ICICI Bank up 5%

All stocks on the indices were trading in green - ICICI Bank, M&M, HDFC and ITC were the top gainers

Benchmark indices kept their strong rally going in the morning trade as investors cheered BJP’s stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, which gives it room for adding more representatives in the Rajya Sabha. BJP won state elections in four out of five states that went to polls indicating that the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still intact.

Both indices rallied by about 2% with Sensex surging as much as 615 points during the early trade while the broader Nifty50 hitting the record high of 9,123 at open.
 
At 12:03 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 29,422 up 475 points, while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 9,076 up 141 points.

 

The broader market was trading inline with the benchmark indices with BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap up 1.3% ans 1.1% respectively.

"Expect to see this Nifty moving towards 9,400 – 9,600 (price extension of previous up move from recent low of 7,893.80) over the next few weeks. We would reiterate that the trend is strong and hence, one should look to utilise intra-week dips to create fresh longs rather than getting worried about the overbought condition of the market," said Angel Broking in an note.
 
The poll results will also boost the sentiment of foreign and domestic investors, who read this as a sign of political stability beyond 2019, when there will be fresh Lok Sabha elections. In UP, the party won its biggest margin in 37 years with a three-fourth majority.

The rupee, which had earlier slid against the dollar amid increasing investor attention on the US, strengthened up to 66 against dollar. The currency closed at 66.61 on Friday and opened today at highest level since April 2016.
 
On Friday, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 412.14 crore, while Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 13.91 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.
 
Meanwhile, the wholesale price inflation (WPI) data for February was announced at 6.55%. The inflation for January stood at a 30-month high of 5.25%. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation in December stood at 3.39%.

Sectors and Stocks
 
All except 3 stocks on BSE Sensex were trading in green - ICICI Bank, L&T, HDFC and ITC were the top gainers while Bharti Airtel, GAIL and Bajaj auto were trading flat with a negative bias.

Adani Enterprises gained 2.55 % after the company applied for financing from an Australian infrastructure fund to build a rail line that is part of a $16 billion coal project in the state of Queensland.

All sectoral indices except metals were trading in green. Capital Goods, Bankex, Power Realty were the biggest sectoral gainers, up between 1-2% while BSE metals fell 0.5% on the index.

 
Global Markets
 
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1%, while Japan's Nikkei inched down 0.1%. South Korea's Kospi was up with modest gains. Traders will focus on Federal Reserve’s meet on whether to raise interest rates. They will look for clues on how quickly the US central bank is planning to tighten monetary policy.
 
Chinese shares saw early gains rolled back after combined retail sales for January and February rose only 9.5% from a year earlier, missing expectations of 10.5%. Fixed-asset investment expanded 8.9%, and industrial output grew 6.3%, both beating forecasts.

 
The CSI 300 index opened the day lower, then rose but gave back that gain after the data release.
 
On Wall Street, markets closed off session lows as traders anticipated an interest rate hike on Wednesday. The S&P 500 closed nearly 1 point higher in its third straight day of gains. Materials stocks led advancers, while health care was the worst decliner.