Markets take a breather ahead of Q4 GDP data; broader markets outperform

Benchmark indices took a breather after closing at record highs for the previous sessions tracking muted handover from Wall Street. Asian Markets were high as data showed China's factory activity grew at a steady clip this month, bucking expectations of a slowdown.
 
While monsoon rains hitting the Kerala coast kept the sentiment upbeat, the Street looked out for the March-quarter GDP numbers, to be announced later in the day.
 
At 12:39 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 31,188, up 28 points, while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 9,629, up 5 points.
 

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Midcap gained 0.6%, while the S&P BSE Smallcap rose 0.8%.

"Favoured view continues to expect uptrend to be intact and 9530 to hold for a while, but volatility expectations have significantly gone up.ADX is still firm, but oscillators looked to show signs of exhaustions, and expectations towards directional upsides have commensurately come down. To this end, upside objectives are limited to 9,670/9,727, and approaches to these points are less expected to be vertical," said Geojit Financial services in a note.

Buzzing Stocks
 
M&M, Lupin, GAIL, Bharti Airtel gained the most on BSE Sensex while Infosys, HDFC, ONGC and TCS shed the most on the index. 

Mahindra and Mahindra gained 4%, becoming the top gainer on BSE Sensex after it reported a robust 26.3% growth in profit at Rs 873.72 crore for January-March quarter year-on-year.

India’s largest liquor company United Spirits gained nearly 10% after the company's revenue grew 9.22% Rs 6,485.2 crore (y-o-y). The company reported a net loss of Rs104.2 crore for Q4, compared with a Rs1.4 crore net profit a year ago, largely because of the impact of exceptional items. Excluding these items (mainly a provision of Rs264.5 crore to settle a pricing issue with a customer), the Diageo group company earned a profit of Rs152.3 crore.
 
Q4 GDP data today
 
The government will announce the GDP for the fourth quarter later in the day. The economy is expected to grow at 7.1% in the fourth quarter of FY17, as re-monetisation has gained steam, ICRA noted.

 
In the third quarter, the GDP had grown marginally lower, at 7%, down from 7.4% in Q2.
 
India's former chief statistician Pronab Sen yesterday said that the country's GDP for 2016-17 will get a 50 basis points (bps) push to 7.6% from the government's estimate of 7.1%, due to the recent revision of the base year of the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
 
Global Markets
 
Asian stocks climbed on Wednesday, capping a fifth consecutive month of gains, as data showed China's factory activity grew at a steady clip this month, bucking expectations of a slowdown.

 
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2% on Wednesday, with Chinese stocks leading the region higher as investors returned from a long holiday break while Japan's Nikkei dipped 0.1%.
 
Activity in China's manufacturing sector grew at the same pace in May as in April, with a headline reading of 51.2, official data showed, in a reassuring sign the world's second-biggest economy is not losing too much steam after a solid first quarter performance.
 
In the overnight trade, Wall Street ended lower. Dow Jones fell 0.24%, S&P 500 lost 0.12%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.11%.