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Indian equity markets maintained their upward momentum in the afternoon session and continued to trade on positive bias, following gains in IT, Auto and TECK stocks. Healthy buying was observed in blue-chip stocks like Mahindra & Mahindra, Tech Mahindra and Infosys. Sentiments were upbeat with the Finance Ministry has said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the fifth month in a row in February, rising 7 percent to over Rs 1.13 lakh crore, indicating economic recovery. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked civil accounts officers to have a clear road map for seamless digital payments, saying there were lessons to be learnt from the technology-driven glitch that happened at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) last week.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as a halt in a recent bond markets sell-off eased investor nerves and lifted riskier assets. Back on street, in scrip specific developments, Siemens gained on completing acquisition of 99.22% stake in C&S Electric and IndiGo jumped on signing purchase-leaseback agreements with BOC Aviation.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 50061.80, up by 211.96 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 49807.12 and 50424.65. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.90%, while Small cap index was up by 0.93%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.87%, Auto up by 1.86%, TECK up by 1.75%, Industrials up by 1.20% and Consumer Discretionary was up by 1.20%, while Bankex down by 0.11% were the only losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 4.44%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.70%, Infosys up by 2.00%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.99% and TCS was up by 1.67%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.94%, HDFC down by 1.73%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.32%, Power Grid down by 1.10% and Kotak Mahindra Bank was down by 0.51% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, rating agency ICRA in its latest report has said that domestic air passenger traffic is likely to return to the pre-COVID-19 level by the financial year 2022-23 and international by 2023-24. It expects passenger traffic to grow around 133 percent in 2021-22 and 14 percent in 2022-23 after an expected contraction of 63 percent in 2020-21. But, it said there could be a delay in the commercialisation of expanded capacity by 9-12 months.

According to the report, domestic passenger traffic has reached around 61 percent and international passenger traffic at 23 percent of the pre-COVID-19 level in January 2021. It also said the cargo volumes are likely to grow around 36 percent in 2021-22 and 6 percent in 2022-23 after a 25 percent contraction this fiscal, reaching pre-COVID-19 levels in 2021-22. It added that the aircraft traffic in the April-January period of 2020-21 was lower by 60 per cent y-o-y, while the passenger traffic was down by 72 per cent over the year-ago period.

The ratings agency further said planned capital expenditure (capex) of major airports was around Rs 77,000 crore during 2020-24 prior to pandemic. However, it said the slower project execution and the significant decline in the traffic and the consequent revenues and cash flows resulted in the companies to preserve cash and defer the capex.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 14847.75, up by 86.20 points or 0.58% after trading in a range of 14760.80 and 14933.65. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 4.40%, BPCL up by 3.94%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.51%, Wipro up by 3.50% and Tata Motors was up by 3.11%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.99%, HDFC down by 1.53%, UPL down by 1.49%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.21% and Power Grid was down by 0.90% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; KOSPI rose 30.92 points or 1.03% to 3,043.87, Straits Times advanced 14.28 points or 0.48% to 2,987.28 and Jakarta Composite was up by 3.10 points or 0.05% to 6,341.61.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined 43.26 points or 1.22% to 3,508.14, Hang Seng decreased 264.42 points or 0.90% to 29,188.15 and Nikkei 225 slipped 255.33 points or 0.86% to 29,408.17 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 6.92 points or 0.04% to 15,946.88.

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