Indices turn positive ahead of Budget presentation

Key equity benchmarks bounced back in morning trade ahead of the announcement of Union Budget 2020 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The Budget speech will begin at around 11 am today with Sitharaman beginning it with an address to the speaker of Lok Sabha.

At 10:26 IST, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 43.21 points or 0.11% at 40, 766.70. The Nifty 50 index was up 9 points or 0.08% at 11,971.10.

The broader market outperformed the benchmark indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was down up 0.72% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.49%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1056 shares rose and 613 shares fell. A total of 87 shares were unchanged. In Nifty 50 index, 25 stocks advanced while 25 stocks declined.

Economy:

The Government released the data for Eight Core Industries after market hours yesterday. The Eight Core Industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The combined Index of Eight Core Industries stood at 133.2 in December, 2019, which increased by 1.3% as compared to the index of December 2018. Its cumulative growth during April to December, 2019-20 was 0.2%.

Production of crude oil, natural gas, and electricity contracted in December 2019 while coal, refinery products and fertilizer posted a positive growth number. Growth rate of steel and cement sectors slowed down to 1.9% and 5.5% respectively.

Q3 Earnings:

Amara Raja Batteries (up 3.64%), Relaxo Footwears (up 1.04%), Mahindra Holidays & Resorts (up 1.48%), Karur Vyasa Bank (up 1.77%), Thyrocare Technologies (up 2.26%), Sobha (up 1.67%), Sarda Energy Minerals (down 0.44%), Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals (up 1.27%) and Sayaji Hotels (down 0.87%) are some of the companies that will announce their Q3 2019 earnings today.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Vedanta fell 0.62%. The mining company reported 49.2% jump in consolidate net profit to Rs 2,348 crore in Q3 December 2019 as compared to Rs 1,574 crore reported in the same period last year. Net sales declined 9.9% to Rs 21,126 crore in Q3 December 2019 from Rs 23,435 crore in Q3 December 2018. Revenue declined primarily due to subdued commodity prices and lower volumes in Zinc and Oil & Gas business, partially offset by past exploration cost recovery in Oil & Gas business and higher volumes at Iron Ore & Steel business.

Escorts was up 0.25% after its tractor segment announced January sales figures before market hours today. Escorts' agri machinery segment (EAM) in January 2020 sold 6,063 tractors, registering a growth of 1.2% against 5,991 tractors sold in January 2019. The segment's sales are up 47.37% from 4,114 units recorded in December 2019. The company's domestic tractor sales in January 2020 stood at 5,845 tractors registering a growth of 1.4% against 5,762 tractors in January 2019. Exports in January 2020 stood at 218 tractors as against 229 tractors sold in January 2019, down 4.8% YoY.

Black Rose Industries was up 2.06% to Rs 101.75 after the company announced the completion of expansion of acrylamide capacity and commencement of commercial production at the expanded plant. The company also announced the installation of additional capacity for the manufacturing of polyacrylamide liquids and commencement of production at the facility.

SMS Pharmaceuticals jumped 6.09% after company successfully completed audit of its API facility as part of EDQM inspection programme. The inspection was carried out from 29 January 2020 to 31 January 2020.

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