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Sensex Opens Higher Ahead of RBI Policy Decision; SpiceJet Zooms 10%
Fri, 4 Dec 09:30 am

Asian share markets are trading lower today as US legislators wrangled over a fiscal stimulus and negotiations over a Brexit trade deal continued.

The Hang Seng is trading down by 0.2% while the Shanghai Composite is trading lower by 0.4%. The Nikkei is trading down by 0.5%.

US stock markets finished mostly higher on Thursday, extending their recent record-setting run as better-than-expected economic data boosted sentiment.

However, stocks lost momentum within Thursday's final hour of trade after it was reported that Pfizer Inc. expects to ship half of the Covid-19 vaccines it originally planned for this year because of supply-chain problems, but still expects to roll out more than a billion doses in 2021.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up by 0.3% while the Nasdaq ended up by 0.2%, after hitting an intraday record high.

Back home, Indian share markets have opened the day on a positive note, following the trend on SGX Nifty.

Market participants are tracking the policy announcement by the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The six-member MPC is forecast to hold the benchmark repurchase rate at 4% today.

Investors will also watch out for any revision in the GDP growth targets for FY21 and inflation targets.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 167 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading higher by 56 points.

Bharti Airtel and UltraTech Cement are among the top gainers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index have opened the day up by 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively.

Barring IT stocks, all sectoral indices are trading in green with stocks in the auto sector and telecom sector witnessing maximum buying interest.

The rupee is trading at 73.90 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 49,382 per 10 grams.

To know more about gold, you can check out our detailed article on investing in gold here: How to Invest in Gold?

Speaking of stock markets, the past month was a staggering one. Benchmark indices saw huge buying interest and went on to touch record-high levels.

The BSE smallcap index was up 13% in November.

The BSE smallcap index has risen more than 10% in a month only 6 times in the last decade.

Foreign investors (FIIs) invested a net amount of around Rs 650 bn in November. This is the biggest purchase by FIIs by a big margin so far.

Will this rally in Indian share markets continue in December?

We reached out to Brijesh Bhatia, our new team member and Research Analyst of Fast Profits Reports, for his view on the Indian stock markets.

Here's what he had to say...

  • The bulls celebrated Diwali with fireworks and started Samvat 2077 with a roar.

    The Nifty gained 11.4% in the month of November. 80% of the trading days ended on positive note. Midcap and Small Cap indices gained 15.5% and 13% respectively.

    We had 20 trading days in November 2020. 16 of them ended on positive note with 8 straight days of gains from 2nd to 11th November.

    The Nifty has now turned positive for CY2020 and has hit a new all-time high of 13,145.85.

    All sectorial indices ended on a positive note for the month.

    Metals (24.84%), Private Banks (24.25%), PSU Banks (23.63%), and Financial Services (22.84%) gained more than 20%.

    Sectors like IT (4.05%) and Pharma (5.30%) which has outperformed in the first leg of rally, were the underperformers.

    The stocks in Nifty 200 were on fire too. Out of 200 stocks, 179 ended on a positive note which means 90% stocks were in green zone.

    The broad-based buying indicates the momentum is still in the bull's favour. Entering the month of December, can this momentum prolong?

    Well, if we look at the seasonality chart for Nifty 50, December tends out to be the best month for bulls with an average return of 3.43% since 1996.


    Hope we have a Santa rally this Christmas too and end the pandemic year near all-time high levels!

You can read Brijesh's detailed profile here.

And in case you missed his first Equitymaster video, you can watch it now.

In latest developments from the IPO space, the Rs 8.1 billion public offer of Burger King India has received a strong response from retail investors. The issue was subscribed 9.4 times as on December 3, the second day of bidding.

The portion set aside for retail investors has been subscribed 37.8 times, while the reserved portion of non-institutional investors witnessed a subscription of 3.6 times and that of qualified institutional buyers 2.7 times.

The issue was oversubscribed on the first day itself. This is the sixth IPO to get subscribed on the first day of bidding itself, following Happiest Minds Technologies, Route Mobile, Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, Mazagon Dock and Likhita Infrastructure.

To know more about this IPO and our view on it, you can check our IPO note on the same here: Burger King IPO: Should You Subscribe to This QSR Chain Business?

Moving on to stock specific news...

HDFC Bank is among the top buzzing stock today.

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred HDFC Bank from issuing new credit cards and launching fresh digital banking initiatives, the private lender's CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan assured existing clients of the bank and said that they could continue to transact with the bank without any concern.

Jagdishan also said that the bank with comply with the regulator's diktat.

"Unexpectedly, another incident happened on November 21 and the primary reason for the same is the power outage in our primary data centre. We are working on a war footing to strengthen this area also now," the bank CEO added.

Earlier, HDFC Bank has had two outages, one in November 2018 and the other in December 2019.

Yesterday, the RBI asked HDFC Bank to temporarily halt sourcing new credit cards and stop the launch of its digital business-generating activities planned under Digital 2.0 and other proposed business generating IT applications.

The RBI decision came after the recent outage at its data centre, which impacted operations last month.

HDFC Bank is the largest credit card seller in the country.

Note that India's second most valued listed company lost over US$ 2 billion in market value after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked it to temporarily stop all launches of its upcoming digital business-generating activities and sourcing of new credit card customers.

Yesterday, HDFC Bank share price cracked as much as 2% during the afternoon session after trading in the green for almost two hours.

Note that, HDFC Bank is one that has always adapted to changing times.

HDFC Bank wanted to transform itself from a leader in the physical banking to a leader in online banking. Since then, HDFC Bank has constantly focused on going digital.

In 2004, only 10% of customer transactions were initiated through internet and mobile. The number has gone up to 92% in 2019.

HDFC Bank's Digital Transformation


It is a great example of a company which has taken advantage of its scale and embraced disruption rather than fear it.

These are traits that one should look for in picking stocks. They not only withstand the disruption but also gain from it in the long-run.

Moving on to news from the aviation sector, Interglobe Aviation (IndiGo) share price and SpiceJet share price are witnessing buying interest today.

Airlines in India will be able to sell seats up to 80% of their pre-covid capacity on domestic flights, up from the existing 70%, in a further relaxation of restrictions in the sector hammered by the covid-19 pandemic.

Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted about the change on Thursday, offering some relief to airlines looking to fly more passengers during the Christmas-New Year period.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had on Thursday evening issued a circular to increase the cap on domestic flight capacity from 70% to 80% of pre-covid levels.

Airlines resumed domestic operations on 25 May, after being grounded for two months due to the lockdown.

We will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space. Stay tuned.

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

For information on how to pick stocks that have the potential to deliver big returns, download our special report now!

Read the latest Market Commentary


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