Nifty nears 11,550; auto stocks zoom

Key equity indices firmed up and hit day's high in morning trade. The Nifty hovered near the 11,550 level. Gains in auto stocks were negated by losses in banks and IT shares.

At 10:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 82.65 points or 0.21% at 39,127. The Nifty 50 index added 22.9 points or 0.2% at 11,544.10.

The broader market was up for third trading session after the Sebi on 11 September issued a circular mandating multi cap funds to allocate least 25% of their portfolios in large-, mid- and small-caps each by February 2021.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.32% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.31%.

Buyers outpaced sellers. On the BSE, 1238 shares rose and 889 shares fell. A total of 146 shares were unchanged.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 29,479,686 with 9,33,542 deaths. India reported 9,95,933 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 82,066 deaths while 39,42,360 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Economy:

India's exports slipped 12.66% to $22.7 billion in August, on account of decline in the shipments of petroleum, leather, engineering goods and gems and jewellery items, according to the government data released on 15 September 2020. The country's imports too declined 26% to $29.47 billion in August, leaving a trade deficit of $6.77 billion, compared to a shortfall of $13.86 billion in the same month last year, as per the data.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Auto index climbed 2.05% to 8,198.45. The index topped other sectoral indices on the NSE.

Mahindra & Mahindra (up 4.6%), Bajaj Auto (up 3.09%), Motherson Sumi (up 2.69%), Tata Motors (up 2.16%), TVS Motor (up 1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (up 1.59%), Hero MotoCorp (up 1.51%) and Eicher Motor (up 1.48%) advanced.

Stocks in Spotlight:

National Fertilizer (NFL) spurted 5.62% after the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 108.31 crore in Q1 June 2020 as compared to a consolidated net loss of Rs 64.07 crore in Q1 June 2019. Consolidated net sales for Q1 June 2020 stood at Rs 2831.85 crore, rising 11.2% from Rs 2,547.04 crore in Q1 June 2019. During the quarter ended 30 June 2020, NFL's production, dispatches, sales and market collections largely remained unaffected. The company has been able to operate all its five plants at normal levels except for restriction in load for few days due to limitation of supply of bags.

SpiceJet dropped 1.12%. The low-cost air carrier reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 600.52 crore in Q1 June 2020 compared with net profit of Rs 262.89 crore in Q1 June 2019. Net sales during the quarter slumped 83.2% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 489.60 crore, as flight operations remained suspended for most part of the quarter following the nationwide lockdown. On an EBITDA basis, loss was Rs 11 crore for the reported quarter as against profit of Rs 747.5 crore for the corresponding quarter last year. On an EBITDAR basis, the profit was Rs 13.5 crore for the reported quarter as against profit of Rs 812.1 crore for the same quarter last year.

Sterlite Technologies jumped 5%. The company announced a partnership with Bharti Airtel to build a modern optical fibre network for Airtel across 10 telecom circles. This modern optical network will enable Airtel to deliver world-class customer experience through enhanced scalability, reduced latency, and improved bandwidth. The densely fiberized, future-ready network, will also form the foundation for many next-gen services such as 5G, FTTH, IoT, enterprise networks, and Industry 4.0.

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