Benchmarks turn range bound; breadth strong

The Sensex and the Nifty continued to hover in a range in early afternoon trade. At 12:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 108.53 points or 0.28% at 38,875.64. The Nifty 50 index was up 38.40 points or 0.33% at 11,681.85.

Indices opened higher and extended gains in mid-morning trade. Positive cues from other Asian markets boosted investors sentiment. Trading was range bound in early afternoon trade.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.54%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.78%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 1418 shares rose and 899 shares fell. A total of 159 shares were unchanged.

Most FMCG shares advanced. Bajaj Corp (up 2.7%), Tata Global Beverages (up 1.19%), Nestle India (up 1.09%), Godrej Consumer Products (up 0.91%), Colgate Palmolive (India) (up 0.47%), Britannia Industries (up 0.32%), Marico (up 0.31%) and Dabur India (up 0.21%), edged higher. Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care (down 0.06%), Jyothy Laboratories (down 0.08%), Hindustan Unilever (down 0.09%) and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (down 0.16%), edged lower.

Most cement shares rose. ACC (up 0.88%) and UltraTech Cement (up 0.85%), edged higher. Ambuja Cements was down 0.37%.

Grasim Industries was 0.11%. Grasim has exposure to cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.

On the economic front, India's industrial production (base year 2011-12=100) growth moderated sharply to 20-month low of mere 0.1% in February 2019, compared with 1.4% growth recorded in January 2019. The industrial production growth for January 2019 has been revised downwards from 1.7% increase reported provisionally.

The all-India general CPI inflation rose to 2.86% in March 2019 (new base 2012=100), compared with 2.57% in February 2019. However, the core CPI inflation eased to 5.02% in March 2019 compared with 5.29% in February 2019.

Overseas, Asian shares were trading higher. Investors cheered Chinese data on Friday showing exports rebounded in March to a five-month high while new bank loans jumped by far more than expected.

US stocks closed higher Friday after a series of strong bank earnings boosted confidence in the US economy.

On the data front, US import prices rose sharply in March for the second straight month. The import price index climbed 0.6% last month after a revised 1% gain in February. Further, the University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index fell to 96.9 in April.

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