Indices hit day's high; NSE VIX drops 4% to 13.20 mark

The benchmark indices further extended gains and hit fresh intraday high in early afternoon trade. The Nifty reclaimed 16,550 mark. NSE's Nifty Bank index extended gains for the second consecutive session.

At 12:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, surged 250.76 points or 0.45% at 55,806.55. The Nifty 50 index added 72.60 points or 0.44% at 16,569.05.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.78% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index gained 0.98%.

The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 1,754 shares rose and 1,289 shares fell. A total of 115 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman launched the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) on Monday, 23 August 2021. NMP comprises a four-year pipeline of the Central Government's brownfield infrastructure assets. Besides providing visibility to investors, NMP will also serve as a medium-term roadmap for the asset monetisation initiative of the government.

The government has planned a Rs 6 lakh crore pipeline of assets that can be monetised, which will include a range of assets put on the block for private sector participation. The government has also developed an asset monetisation dashboard for monitoring real-time progress of NMP. Policy think tank NITI Aayog has finalised the NMP of potential brownfield infrastructure assets that has been created for a four-year period from financial year 2021-22 to 2024-25.

Giving a presentation, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, infra assets worth Rs. six lakh crore across rail, road, power sectors to be monetised over four years.

The NMP will serve as a roadmap for asset monetisation of various brownfield infrastructure assets across sectors including roads, railways, aviation, power, oil and gas, and warehousing.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday that foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country is on the rise, jumping to $2.1 billion in May this year. He also said the government is working on a mission mode to achieve exports target of $400 billion in 2021-22.

"India has received the highest ever FDI inflow in 2020-21. It surged by 10% to $81.72 billion and FDI during May 2021 is $12.1 billion, i.e. 203% higher than May 2020," he said while addressing a meeting of different industry associations on promoting exports.

Coronavirus Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 21,25,40,737 with 44,41,321 deaths. India reported 3,19,551 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 4,35,110 deaths while 3,17,20,112 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, declined 3.54% to 13.20. The Nifty 26 August 2021 futures were trading at 16,555, at a discount of 14.05 points as compared with the spot at 16,569.05.

The Nifty option chain for 26 August 2021 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 71.3 lakh contracts at the 16,600 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 65.5 lakh contracts was seen at 16,500 strike price.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Bank index rose 1.24% to 35,561.45. The index added 1.50% in the past two sessions.

IDFC First Bank (up 4.27%), AU Small Finance Bank (up 3.32%), Federal Bank (up 2.30%), RBL Bank (up 2.03%) and State Bank of India (SBI) (up 1.82%) were the major gainers in the Bank segment.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Vedanta advanced 2.10% after the company said it had made a natural gas discovery in a block in Gujarat that it had won in the open acreage licensing policy (OALP) round. Vedanta has notified the Management Committee, DGH and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on 23 August 2021 of a gas & condensate discovery (named 'Jaya') in its exploratory well Jaya-1 (earlier Jambusar-Updip-1) drilled in OALP Block CB-ONHP/2017/2 in Bharuch District of Gujarat.

Nucleus Software Exports rallied 3.84% after the IT company said that it will empower South Indian Bank by providing digital solution offering to revamp the bank's current retail lending landscape.

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