Benchmarks come off day's high; realty shares advance

Key barometers came off the day's high in the early afternoon trade. Realty stocks made the biggest upmove. At 12:12 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 196.52 points or 0.53% at 37,341.97. The Nifty 50 index was up 29.15 points or 0.26% at 11,032.20.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.65%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.24%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1681 shares rose and 582 shares fell. A total of 118 shares were unchanged.

On the derivatives front, the NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, fell 2.22% at 15.50. The Nifty September 2019 futures were trading at 11,079.65, a premium of 31.3 points compared with the spot at 11,048.35.

On the options front, the Nifty option chain for 26 September 2019 expiry showed maximum call open interest (OI) of 21.56 lakh contracts at the 11,200 strike price. Maximum put OI of 34.24 lakh contracts was seen at 10,800 strike price. The option chain indicated that Nifty will stay between 10,800 and 11,200 till September expiry.

Realty stocks were in demand. DLF (up 6.16%), Godrej Properties (up 4.45%), Oberoi Realty (up 4.17%), Mahindra Lifespace Developers (up 2.38%), Indiabulls Real Estate (up 1.32%), Sobha (up 1.27%), Sunteck Realty (up 1.21%), Prestige Estates Projects (up 1.09%), Anant Raj (up 0.73%), The Phoenix Mills (up 0.51%) and Omaxe (up 0.26%) jumped.

The S&P BSE Realty was up 3.47% at 2,030.59.

State owned Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel) was up 3.88% after the company successfully commissioned the 1320 MW IB Thermal Power Station. The supercritical power plant is based in Jharsuguda district, Odisha. BHEL's work in the project encompassed design, engineering, manufacturing, supply, erection and commissioning of steam turbines, generators, boiler, associated auxiliaries and electrical.

Shares of state-run oil marketing companies surged after media reports suggested that the national carrier Air India would settle its dues with the PSU OMCs via easy monthly installments. HPCL (up 1.83%), BPCL (up 1.27%) and Indian Oil Corporation (up 0.63%) advanced.

Media reports suggested that Air India will pay Rs 100 crore to the public sector oil marketing companies (PSU OMCs) from September 2019 onwards. The reports added that this payment is one of the arrangements chalked out by the government to ensure uninterrupted fuel supply to the debt-ridden airline. Public sector OMCs had earlier on 22 August stopped fuel supplies to Air India at six airports of Kochi, Mohali, Pune, Patna, Ranchi and Vizag over payment defaults. PSU OMCs together have unpaid liabilities of close to Rs 5,000 crore from state-run air carrier, reports stated.

JSW Steel announced crude steel production numbers for the month of August 2019. The company's crude steel production declined 13% to 12.53 lakh tonne in the month of August 2019 as compared to 14.48 lakh tonne in August 2018. JSW Steel was trading 3.12% higher at Rs 226.5

Pharmaceutical major Sanofi India was down 2.71%. The company announced selling Ankleshwar site in Gujarat to Zentiva for Rs 261.7 crore.

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