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Sensex Ends 154 Points Higher; ONGC and L&T Among Top Nifty Gainers
Mon, 14 Dec Closing

Indian share markets witnessed volatile trading activity today and ended marginally higher.

In the afternoon session, benchmark indices turned volatile and climbed off their fresh lifetime highs scaled in early trade. However, losses were recouped during closing hours amid huge buying seen in metal and capital goods stocks.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 154 points. The NSE Nifty stood higher by 44 points.

ONGC and L&T were among the top gainers today. M&M, on the other hand, was among the top losers today.

SGX Nifty was trading at 13,584, up by 67 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index ended up by 0.8%. The BSE Small Cap index ended higher by 0.7%.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note with stocks in the capital goods sector and oil & gas sector witnessing buying interest.

The BSE Capital Goods index hit a fresh 52-week high of 18,252, up 2%, on expectation of sustained growth momentum. Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Bharat Electronics, Graphite India, NBCC and Lakshmi Machine Works from the index were up in the range of 2-6%.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note. As of the most recent closing prices, the Shanghai Composite stood higher by 0.7% and the Nikkei ended up by 0.3%.

US stock futures are trading higher today, indicating a positive start for Wall Street indices.

Nasdaq Futures are trading up by 47 points (up 0.4%), while Dow Futures are trading up by 197 points (up 0.7%).

The rupee is trading at 73.52 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading down by 1% at Rs 48,822 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 the precious yellow metal, in his latest video, India's #1 trader, Vijay Bhambwani shares his view on gold and silver for the coming year.

In the video, Vijay explains the reasons behind staying positive on these assets.

Tune in here to find out more:

In latest developments from the IPO space, shares of Burger King India made a strong debut at the bourses today, with the stock of the quick-service restaurant (QSR) nearly doubling against its issue price.

The stock listed at Rs 115.35, a 92% premium against its issue price of Rs 60 on the BSE.

Burger King India share price moved higher as the session progressed and hit Rs 138 levels, up 131% from its issue price on the BSE.

Burger King India's Rs 8.1 billion initial public offer (IPO) received an overwhelming response from investors, with the public offer being subscribed 157 times. The issue generated bids for 11.7 billion shares, worth Rs 700 billion, as against only 75 million on offer.

That made Burger King India the fourth mainboard IPO this year, which saw bidding of 100 times and more. The other three were Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders (157.41 times), Happiest Minds (156.65 times) and Chemcon Speciality (149.3 times).

While Mazagon got listed at a near 50% premium to its IPO price, Chemcon Speciality saw a 115% surge. Shares of Happiest Minds Technologies rallied 111% at its listing.

In other news, bakery products manufacturer Mrs Bectors Food Specialties will open its initial public offering tomorrow. This is the fifteenth IPO in 2020.

The company plans to raise Rs 5.4 billion via its public issue. The IPO consists of a fresh issue of Rs 405.4 million and an offer for sale of Rs 5 billion by selling shareholders.

The company has fixed a price band of Rs 286-288 per share for its public issue.

SBI Capital Markets, ICICI Securities and IIFL Securities are acting as the book running lead managers to the offer.

How this IPO sails through remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space.

In news from the economic space, India's wholesale inflation rose for the fourth consecutive month and firmed up to a nine-month high of 1.55% in November driven by manufactured items, data released by the commerce and industry ministry showed.

Wholesale price index (WPI) inflation was 1.48% in September.

The annual rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index, which comprises 'food articles' from primary articles group and 'food product' from manufactured products group, decreased to 4.27% in November from 5.78% in October. The government retained the wholesale inflation for September at 1.32%.

Food inflation in November stood at 3.94%, against 6.37% in the previous month. The rate of price rise in vegetables and potato remained high at 12.24% and 115.12% during the month.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation will release the retail inflation numbers for November later today.

Moving on to news from the power sector, Power Grid and Adani Power were among the top buzzing stocks today.

Power Grid share price gained over 1% today after the company said its board approved the payment of interim dividend of Rs 5 per equity share for the financial year 2020-21.

The company has fixed 19 December 2020 as the record date for determining the entitlement of the shareholder for the interim dividend.

The dividend will be paid on January 8, 2021.

Meanwhile, Adani Power said electricity regulator Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) had passed two orders, which would enable its arm APML to claim revised compensation of higher coal from Maharashtra Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL).

Adani Power share price rose as much as 5% today on the back of above news.

In other news from the power sector, Power Minister R K Singh today expressed concerns about the sustainability of state-owned loss making discoms saying investments in the power sector will not come unless there is viability in the system.

"Investment will not come unless and until there is viability in the system, unless and until the people who put money are assured that power they generate, and sell will be paid for. That is the basic problem of sustainability we are facing," Singh said at the 93rd annual general meeting of industry chamber FICCI.

The minister further said, "I am worried about sustainability because a large number of discoms are loss making. Most of the state-owned discoms are loss making. None of the private-owned discoms are loss making as their aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses are below norm."

On disinvestment of discoms, the minister said the workers unions do not realize that discoms losses are not sustainable.

On power demand in the country, he said it has remained five gigawatt to ten gigawatt higher on a daily basis in December so far and had recorded nearly 12% growth in October year-on-year.

Speaking of the power sector, it is interesting to note that the power exchanged in India is about 4.5% of the overall power production, as can be seen in the chart below:


This is abysmally low by global standards. This shows that there is big upside in the market share of power exchanges in India.

As per Tanushree Banerjee, co-head of Research at Equitymaster, India's power sector is currently in transition. It is driven by increasing reliance on short-term contracts and electricity spot markets. This transition to the short-term market is happening due to quickly evolving industry dynamics.

Tanushree believes the Indian power sector will see a surge in spot power volumes due to certain factors.

Back in August, Tanushree recommended a high quality stock from this space. Subscribers can read the report here (requires subscription).

And if you are not a StockSelect subscriber, here's where you can sign up.

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

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