Key indices edged higher in early trade tracking firmness in Asian stocks. At 9:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, gained 86.93 points or 0.26% at 33,843.21. The Nifty 50 index rose 20.65 points or 0.2% at 10,460.95.
The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.51%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index gained 0.61%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.
The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was very strong. On the BSE, 1,115 shares rose and 284 shares fell. A total of 61 shares were unchanged.
L&T (up 0.97%), TCS (up 0.78%) and ONGC (up 0.77%) gained.
HDFC gained 0.41% after the company announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to transfer its entire shareholding in HDFC Realty, a real estate brokerage platform; and, HDFC Developers (which runs the HDFC RED platform) to Quikr, India's market leader in digital classified business. HDFC has also acquired an equity stake in Quikr India. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 21 December 2017.
HDFC Realty is HDFC's offline brokerage business with a presence across residential and commercial properties as well as consulting and valuation services. RED is an online real estate classifieds platform with 7,000 project listings on its platform. It generates traffic of over 80,000 unique visitors per month.
With 30 million monthly users, Quikr is India's largest classifieds platform that runs multiple vertical businesses across real estate, automobiles, jobs, services and goods. Its real estate vertical 'Quikr Homes' generates 3.5 million monthly unique visitors. The company has rapidly established itself as a leader in digital real estate.
Post integration of HDFC Realty and RED, Quikr will become India's leading online-to-offline real estate platform, and offer consumers end-to-end home buying services.
Overseas, most Asian stocks rose after positive close for US stocks overnight. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet endorsed a record $860 billion spending budget for fiscal 2018, highlighting his greater emphasis on growth than austerity, with aggressive monetary stimulus keeping borrowing costs low.
US stock-market indexes closed modestly higher yesterday, 21 December 2017, driven by gains in the energy, financials and telecom sectors.
On the economic data front, the US economy's pace of growth in the third quarter was lowered slightly to a 3.2% annual rate from 3.3% under the government's final revision to gross domestic product. The economy expanded at a 3.1% rate in the second quarter. Separately, initial jobless claims rose a higher-than-expected 20,000 in the latest week, though they remain at historically low levels.
On the upside, the Philadelphia Fed's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey jumped to a reading of 26.2 in December from 22.7.
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