Market trades firm; US Dollar index slips below 90 mark

The benchmarks indices hit fresh intraday high in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:21 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, added 257.62 points or 0.55% at 46,924.08. The Nifty 50 index advanced 55.85 points or 0.41% at 13,738.55.

The S&P BSE Sensex hit a record high of 46,992.57 while the Nifty hit a record high of 13,773.25 in afternoon trade.

Investors reacted positively to comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve that it will continue to support the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell also said on Wednesday that stock prices are not necessarily highly priced given how low interest rates are. Meanwhile, negotiators in Washington are shaping a new $900 billion coronavirus stimulus bill that is said to include a second stimulus check.

The US Dollar Index slipped below 90 for the first time since April 2018, following the comments from the US Federal Reserve.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.30% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index gained 0.34%.

Buyers outpaced sellers. On the BSE, 1598 shares rose and 1313 shares fell. A total of 175 shares were unchanged.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 7,42,26,214 with 16,49,032 deaths. India reported 3,22,366 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 1,44,451 deaths while 94,89,740 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Subex added 0.51% to Rs 29.70. The company announced a partnership with Telefica to provide the latest version of ROC Fraud Management. Telefica is amongst the largest mobile network providers in the world. Through ROC Fraud Management, Telefica can leverage the solution's Big Data Hadoop architecture to reduce fraud detection time, improve scalability, and ease integration with Telefica's local data lakes.

Manappuram Finance rose 0.55% to Rs 174.70. The NBFC said that its board had approved issue of secured, rated, listed, redeemable, non-convertible debentures (NCDs) with a face value of Rs 10 lakh each aggregating to Rs 400 crore (base size of Rs 100 crore and an option to retain oversubscription upto Rs 300 crore).

CSB Bank jumped 4.63% to Rs 225.80. Nomura Singapore bought 14,96,357 equity shares (representing 0.86% stake) of CSB Bank via bulk deal on Wednesday (16 December 2020) at average price of Rs 214.50. The shares were purchased from Akena on the NSE.

Numbers to Track:

In the foreign exchange market, the partially convertible rupee edged lower to 73.4475 as compared to its previous closing of 73.5875.

The yield on 10-year benchmark federal paper rose to 5.943% compared with its closing of 5.944% in the previous trading session.

MCX Gold futures for 5 February 2021 settlement added 1.05% to Rs 50,116.

The US Dollar index (DXY), which tracks the greenback's value against a basket of currencies, shed 0.59% to 89.92. It is for the first time since April 2018 that the dollar index has slipped below the 90 mark.

In the commodities market, Brent crude for February 2020 settlement added 61 cents to $51.69 a barrel. The contract gained 32 cents or 0.63% to settle at $51.08 in the previous trading session.

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