After opening the day marginally lower, stock markets in India witnessed buying interest and are presently trading on a positive note. Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note with stocks in the realty sector and IT sector witnessing maximum buying interest.
The BSE Sensex is trading up 165 points (up 0.5%) and the NSE Nifty is trading up 57 points (up 0.5%). The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.6%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.8%. The rupee is trading at 66.21 to the US dollar.
In the news from the steel sector, as per an article in the Economic Times, the government is said to roll out a red carpet to big foreign players who want to set up greenfield steel projects.
With this, the country's steel manufacturing capacity is expected to rise to 150 million tonnes by 2020.
As per the news, steel Secretary Aruna Sharma said the sector provides huge growth potential against the backdrop of the country becoming the world's second largest alloy producer with increasing consumption.
From the banking space, HDFC Bank share price is in focus today as the bank reported 20.3% year-on-year growth in net profit to Rs 48 billion for the quarter ended 31 March 2018. The profits were boosted by both interest and non-interest-income growth with net interest income growing 17.7% to Rs 106.6 billion and other income by 22.7% to Rs 34.5 billion during the quarter.
The lender also reported 18.7% growth in advances over March 2017 contributed by retail loans. The loan mix between retail and wholesale was in 57:43 ratio as compared with 55:45 at the end of December quarter. Retail loans grew 27.4% and wholesale loans 9.4%.
Tata Steel share price is also in focus today as it was reported that the company is in talks with lenders including HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, DBS Bank, Kotak Bank Mahindra Bank and mortgage financier HDFC to raise Rs 170 billion.
In the news from commodity space, market participants are tracking crude oil prices today.
Oil prices gave off earlier weakness on the back of a tweet from US President Donald Trump. As per the news, oil traders will continue to weigh ongoing efforts by major global crude producers to reduce a supply glut against a steady increase in US production levels in the week ahead.
Over the week, a meeting was held between Joint Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC ministerial monitoring committee (JMMC) to boost compliance with the production pact and even discuss how they would like crude near US$ 100.
Last week, crude oil was headed for its biggest weekly advance in more than eight months on speculation that tensions in the Middle East may lead to supply disruptions, reinforcing a buy call on commodities by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The risk of conflict in Syria, as well as ongoing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, has raised concerns over supply security in the energy-rich region.
While OPEC said its output last month fell to the lowest in a year, with worldwide inventories set to decline significantly later this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) sees a second wave of shale revolution in the US.
How this pans out remains to be seen. We will keep you updated on all the developments from this space.
Note that crude oil prices have been witnessing a rising trend of late. However, this is not good news from India's perspective.
As we wrote in one of the editions of The 5 Minute WrapUp...
You can read the entire article here.
Pharma stocks are witnessing buying interest today. Among the top gainers in the BSE Healthcare index are Merck Ltd (up 11.6%) and Unichem Laboratories Ltd (up 7%).
Speaking of pharma stocks, did you know the BSE Healthcare Index is down 20% over the past three years? During the same period, the BSE Sensex is up 21%.
And this was a sector they called 'evergreen'.
Have Investors boarded a plane that's about to crash? Or is it just turbulence on the way to a smooth and safe landing?
Here's what we wrote about the same in today's edition of The 5 Minute WrapUp:
You can access these safe stocks here.
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