March 21: mid-session report

Bucking the trend, Indian markets opened in green ignoring other Asian peers which were mostly traded in red after three consecutive day of gains. Chinese Index too closed the day with some smart gains. Carrying the positive momentum forward from the next week Bank Nifty gained further led by index heavy weights like SBI and PNB.

Nifty was trading up by 48 points at 7652; and Sensex by 164 points at 25115. Both the leading indicators were trading with gains of 0.62 and 0.67 per cent respectively.

The advance-decline ratio showed a similar trend as majority of the counters traded in green. As many as 1337 scrips were trading in the positive territory; 1035 scrips were trading in the negative zone; however, 148 stocks remained unchanged on the NSE.

Top Nifty Gainers: UltraTech Cement is leading the gainers' list as it was trading up by close to 3.6 per cent followed by PNB, Bharti Airtel, ACC and SBI which were up 3; 2.63; 2.42; and 2.27 per cent respectively.

Top Nifty Losers: Asian Paints is leading the losers' list down by close to 2.5 per cent, followed by Hero MotoCorp, Wipro, Lupin and BHEL which are down anywhere between 1.45 per cent to 0.93 per cent.

All the major sectoral indices were trading in green except for BSE IT and BSE Metals which were trading down with losses of 0.15 and 0.05 per cent respectively. BSE Realty; BSE Capital Goods; and BSE Bankex Index were the biggest gainers in trade as they rose by 1.78; 1.23; and 1.07 per cent respectively. BSE Small-Caps index also saw buying in trade and rose by close to 1 per cent. BSE Mid -Cap Index also increased by 0.88 per cent.

All the other major Asian markets were trading in red, except for CSI300 which closed with the gains of 2.35 per cent. Japanese benchmark index Nikkei ended the day with losses of 1.25 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed the day by declining 0.07 per cent, whereas Korean KOSPI and Singapore Straight Times Index closed the day with losses of 1.10 and 0.12 per cent for the day.

In commodities, crude oil slid for a second session on Monday, falling further from last week's 2016 highs on concerns over a supply glut after the U.S rig count rose for the first time since December. Brent crude's front-month contract LCOc1 was down 33 cents at USD 40.87. It hit a high of USD 42.54 a barrel in the last session.

Buzzer: - Persistent Systems was buzzing in trade as it was up by close to 10 per cent in trade attributed to tie-up with IBM to jointly work on the latter’s Internet of Things (IOT) platform.

In the second half of the day market is likely to follow the global markets and continue its upward momentum. European bourses are also expected to open flat to higher.