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The Indian equity markets are still soaring high, after a gap-up opening, mainly on the back of short-covering and strength witnessed in global peers. The broad based rally across the banking and auto shares lifted the sentiment.
Overnight, the Wall Street jumped euphorically post the released of US Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes that hinted at raising the interest rates in December as it feels confident about the health of the world’s largest economy. But the Fed also indicated that it would proceed with caution in further tightening of the monetary policy, which aided the enthusiasm across the financial world.
At 2:40 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex is trading at 25,762, up by 280 points while the Nifty50 is trading at 7,815, up by 84 points.
Globally, all the major Asian equities are trading in the green territory. Japan’s central bank has maintained its monetary position, citing confidence in the economy despite challenging conditions. Nikkei is up by 1%. Other Asian markets- Straits Times, Hang Seng, Shanghai Composite have all surged between 1.3-1.5% each.
The European equities also opened positively, shrugging off security concerns in France, as FTSE 100, CAC 40, DAX, have all climbed up by 1%
TRENDING STOCKS
In a firm market, Dr Reddy’s Lab stood out as sore loser. The drug manufacturer that plunged in the opening trades has recovered a bit but only to trade 3% down. The scrip of the pharma company has been in a soup since the US FDA questioned the quality at three of its manufacturing firms in India.
Sarabjit Kour Nangra (VP Research - Pharma, Angel Broking says, “Lundin Law PC announced it is investigating claims against Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. However, currently we don’t think there are any major immediate financial implications of the same and hence, we maintain our numbers and BUY rating with a price target of INR 3933.”
Another stock that hogged limelight today was Hero motocorp. The two- wheeler announced that it clocked over one million units in retail sales over the festive season. The lowering of interest rates and drop in crude oil prices also seem to have helped the company.
From the IT space, Infosys has rebounded after suffering losses in past four trading sessions. The stock has gained over 2%. This rebound has helped its peers such as TCS, Wipro to register 0.2-0.3% gains as well.
Out of the 3 stocks on the Sensex that are trading lower in an upward market is Coal India. The stock has dropped 0.4%. The government has approved a 10% divestment in the state run company yesterday. The stock had seen a broad based buying interest for the past few sessions, despite a weakness in the market.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a marketing margin of Rs 150-200 a standard cubic meter (scm) to be charged by natural gas retailers such as Reliance Industries and GAIL from urea and for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plants. Reliance Inds has soared 2.3% while GAIL is up 1.2%
