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Sensex Trades Higher; Yes Bank and Bharti Airtel Top Gainers
Thu, 2 May 12:30 pm

Stock markets in India are presently witnessing buying interest. The BSE Sensex is trading up by 100 points and the NSE Nifty is trading up by 18 points. Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index are trading up by 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.

Among the sectoral indices, IT stocks and consumer durables stocks are witnessing selling pressure, while telecom stocks and capital goods stocks are leading the pack of gainers.

After the dream bull market of 2017, 2018 turned out to be a wet blanket.

But since March 2019, the Indian markets have rallied sharply. As a result, India managed to outperform most of the other major economies during the second half of the financial year 2018-19 (H2: 2018-19).

The chart below shows the performance of the some of the major world economies during H2: 2018-19 in dollar terms.

Indian Stock Markets Outperform Most Peers

From October 2018 to March 2019, the BSE Sensex increased by 6.8% in rupee terms and 11.7% in dollar terms.

Brazil, Indonesia and China are the only other major economies that did better than India during this period.

Will the trend continue going forward? Let's wait and watch...

In the news from the global economy. The Federal Reserve announced May 1 that it is holding the benchmark interest rate steady at a target range of 2.25% to 2.5%, noting that inflation is "running below" its stated target of 2%.

In a technical change, the Fed also reduced the interest it pays on excess reserves parked at the central bank as part of an effort to stop effective interest rates from breaking outside of its current target range.

The Fed's decision not to change rates affirmed the March meeting's economic projections signaling no rate changes for the rest of 2019.

In that meeting, the Fed said low measures of inflation, concern over global growth, and tightening financial conditions warranted pausing on interest rate hikes while policymakers reassess the data.

The decision also comes as President Donald Trump calls for the Fed to cut rates by as much as 100 basis points.

The central bank's statement walked back its March view that the economy had slowed from the end of last 2018, noting that recent developments show that economic activity rose at a solid rate.

An impressive GDP print released Friday showed the US economy expanding by 3.2% in the first quarter.

The Fed, however, said household spending and business fixed investment slowed in the first quarter.

On employment, the committee repeated its March language describing the labor market as strong with job gains remaining solid.

Moving on to the news from the automobile sector. Bajaj Auto registered a marginal rise of 2% in total sales to 423,315 units in April 2019 against 415,168 units in April 2018.

The company's total exports out of the above stood at 191,211 units, registering a marginal gain of 3% as compared to 185,704 units sold in the corresponding month last year.

The sales of the motorcycles increased by 5% and stood at 366,268 units in April 2019 under review against 349,617 units in April 2018.

The company reported 13% fall in commercial vehicles sales, which stood at 57,047 units as compared to 65,551 units in month of April 2018.

Meanwhile, Atul Auto reported sale of 3,346 units, with a rise of 22.21% for the month of April 2019 as compared to 2,738 units sold in April 2018.

The company had reported sale of 4,612 units, with a rise of 15.21% for the month of March 2019 as compared to 4,003 units sold in March 2018.

At the time of writing, Bajaj Auto share price and Atul Auto share price were trading up by 0.6% and 3.4% respectively.

To know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

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