Shares trade near the day's high; breadth strong

Indices traded sideways with significant gains in mid-morning trade. The Nifty traded above 11,350 level. Encouraging domestic economic data triggered bargain hunting in domestic shares. At 11:25 IST, the S&P BSE Sensex, jumped 583.28 points or 1.52% at 38,880.57. The Nifty 50 index was up 162.50 points or 1.45% at 11,364.25.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.34% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.43%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1438 shares rose and 633 shares fell. A total of 124 shares were unchanged. In Nifty 50 index, 46 stocks advanced while 4 stocks declined.

Economy:

IHS Markit announced Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) numbers for India during market hours today. PMI is an economic indicator derived from monthly surveys of private sector companies. The IHS Markit India Manufacturing PMI declined to 54.5 in February 2020 from a near 8-year high of 55.3 in the previous month.

Commenting on the latest survey results, Pollyanna de Lima, Principal Economist at IHS Markit, said: "Factories in India continued to benefit from strong order flows in February, from both the domestic and international markets. The pick-up in demand meant that companies were able to further lift production and input buying at historically-elevated rates."However, alarm bells are ringing for Indian goods producers as the COVID-19 outbreak poses threats to exports and supply chains. Businesses became less confident about the year-ahead outlook for output, in turn restricting hiring activity. Meanwhile, price data continued to highlight a lack of inflationary pressure in the sector. Only modest increases in input costs and output charges were recorded in February, a trend that has been a key theme of the manufacturing PMI survey for over a year."

Stocks in Spotlight:

Ashok Leyland announced its February 2020 sales figures during market hours today. The commercial vehicle manufacturer informed that total vehicle sales fell 37% in February 2020 to 11,475 units from 18,245 units in February 2019. The company's domestic sales declined 39% to 10,612 units in February 2020 from 17,352 units in February 2019. Shares of Ashok Leyland were up 5.94% at Rs 74.

Coal India rallied 3.21% to Rs 173.50 after the state-run coal producing major announced decent provisional production and offtake figures for February 2020. The company said that its total provisional coal production in February 2020 stood at 66.26 million tonnes as compared to 58.05 million tonnes in February 2019, registering a 14.2% jump. Provisional coal offtake grew 6.8% to 54.97 million tonnes in February 2020 as against 51.46 million in February 2019.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories informed that the U.S. Food and Drug Administrator Investigator revised Form 483 to one observation, instead of two observations reported earlier for company's Manufacturing Plant located at Bachupally, Hyderabad. Shares of drug maker were up 1.11% at Rs 2958.20.

Global Markets:

Most Asian markets were trading lower on Monday as investors were rattled by weekend data from China that showed its fastest ever contraction in factory activity, raising fears of a global recession from the coronavirus.

Chinese factory activity slumped to its sharpest contraction on record after the virus crippled manufacturing in February. The closely watched Caixin/Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) tumbled to 40.3 last month, the lowest level since the survey began in 2004, and down sharply from the 51.1 reading in January.

In US, stocks closed mostly lower on Friday, but off session lows, while recording their worst weekly slide since October 2008 amid intensifying fears over the potential degree of damage the spread of COVID-19 will inflict on the global economy and supply chains.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News