D-Street bulls hold rally on hopes of reforms; Nifty reclaims 8,400

Niifty reclaimed 8,400 mark for the first time since Dec 9, 2014.

Benchmark indices continue to trade higher in the noon trades with financials leading the rally on hopes of a slew of reforms in the two-day bankers' retreat. A broad based rally is evident in today’s trade.

At 1.105 PM, the 30-share Sensex has surged 391 points at 27,899 and the 50-share Nifty has soared 116 points at 8,400

In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are trading largely in-line with the large counterparts with gains of around 1.2% each. Market breadth in BSE is positive with 1,839 advances against 845 declines.

The widely-tracked HSBC purchasing managers' index rose to a two-year high in December after 21-month peak in November due to pick-up in output and order flows from both domestic and overseas markets.

The rupee fell by 14 paise to 63.49 a dollar in early trade today at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market as the US currency strengthened overseas. Dealers said besides dollar's gains against other currencies overseas, increased demand for the American unit from importers also put pressure on the rupee while gains in the domestic equity markets capped the losses.

Yesterday, the rupee suffered the worst single-day drop in over two weeks by falling 32 paise to end at 63.35 against the US dollar.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 18.20 crore on Thursday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Key Stocks:

All sectoral indices are trading in the positive territory with BSE Bankex, Capital Goods, Power and Metal indices trading higher between 1.3-1.7%.

The one-of-a-kind retreat, spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, will include all top bankers to address issues such as consolidation, bad loans, financial inclusion and capital needs.

State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Bank of India are up 1-2.2%, while Union Bank and Canara Bank, up 0.7% each on the NSE. 

IT majors are trading firm. TCS, Infosys and Wipro have gained between 0.5% to 1%.

Metal stocks are edging higher with Sesa Sterlite, Tata Steel and Hindalco gaining close to 1% each.

Capital Goods shares are trading higher between 0.1-3.5% after Indian manufacturing activity expanded at its fastest pace in two years in December as new orders flooded in and factories kept price increases to a minimum, a business survey showed on Friday. BHEL, L&T, Thermax, Crompton Greaves, Siemens, ABB and BEML have gained between 1-3%.

On the flip side, select auto stocks are declining in today’s trade. Shares in M&M and Hero MotoCorp are trading in the red marginally.