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Indian markets have strengthened further, showing a steady trade with gaining momentum in afternoon session. The Sensex was above 57200 mark, the Nifty50 was trading above its crucial support level of 17000, supported by gains in healthcare, industrials, and capital goods stocks. Traders were encouraged as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank, Jayanth R Varma expressed hope that in a few quarters from now, capital investment would begin to pick up even in the old economy, and said the next fiscal year is also expected to witness a decent growth. However, there was some cautiousness as country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by $160 million to stand at $635.667 billion in the week to December 17. During the reporting week ended December 17, the dip in the forex kitty was on account of a decline in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as traders evaluated spiking coronavirus cases and a weekend pledge of greater economic support from China's central bank. Back home, in scrip specific development, RBL Bank tumbled after its top executive stepped down and the central bank appointed an executive to its board.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 57264.88, up by 140.57 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 56543.08 and 57292.89. There were 19 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.07%, while Small cap index was up by 0.34%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.97%, Industrials up by 0.43%, Capital Goods up by 0.41%, IT up by 0.36% and TECK was up by 0.25%, while Metal down by 0.67%, Oil & Gas down by 0.55%, FMCG down by 0.34%, Energy down by 0.24%, Consumer Discretionary was down by 0.11% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tech Mahindra up by 3.02%, Power Grid up by 1.45%, Bajaj Finserv up by 1.13%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.10% and Sun Pharma was up by 0.62%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 2.06%, Asian Paints down by 0.86%, Bajaj Finance down by 0.67%, Titan Company down by 0.55% and ITC was down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, rating agency ICRA has said that the recent improvement in recovery of the non-performing assets (NPAs) and decline in provisioning of loans in the banking sector are expected to improve further in the coming year. Accordingly, it said the improvement in such parameters has helped realise better profitability for the banks. However, subdued credit growth and surplus liquidity continue to be a drag on the profit margins for the sector.

Anil Gupta, Vice-President and Sector Head at ICRA said ‘The banking sector navigated well during 2022, despite the challenges posed by the second wave of Covid-19... Even in the absence of relief measures such as moratorium on loan repayments or standstill on NPA classification, which were allowed during the first wave, banks were able to reduce their NPAs’.

For small finance banks (SFBs), the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted the performance during FY21 and H1FY22 in terms of growth, asset quality and profitability. The rating agency expects the SFB sector to witness improvement in asset under management growth in FY22 as compared with FY21, but the asset quality metrics are expected to remain weak, which would thereby keep credit costs elevated and hence profitability subdued.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17045.75, up by 42.00 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 16833.20 and 17048.80. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.
The top gainers on Nifty were Tech Mahindra up by 3.04%, Cipla up by 1.57%, Bajaj Finserv up by 1.14%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.12% and SBI Life Insurance was up by 0.83%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 2.14%, Hindalco down by 1.38%, Titan Company down by 0.83%, ONGC down by 0.79% and Asian Paints was down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite soared 2.69 points or 0.04% to 6,565.59, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 87.30 points or 0.49% to 18,048.94 and Straits Times was up by 0.10 points or 0% to 3,108.38. On the other hand; KOSPI fell 12.88 points or 0.43% to 2,999.55, Shanghai Composite declined 7.23 points or 0.2% to 3,610.82 and Nikkei 225 was down by 106.13 points or 0.37% to 28,676.46.

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