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Indian equities continued their firm trade in the afternoon session with Sensex and Nifty trading above 58200 and 17350 levels, respectively due to heavy buying in Metal, Basic Materials and Consumer Durables stocks. Gains in frontline blue chip stocks such as Ultratech Cement and Titan Company also helped lift the markets. Sentiments were upbeat as India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said that higher tax and non-tax revenue collections this fiscal are expected to more than offset the shortfall in disinvestment revenue, leading to the fiscal deficit coming in at 6.6 per cent of GDP in FY22, or 20 basis points lower than the budgeted target. Meanwhile, Sebi extended the deadline till September 30 next year for the applicability of the tweaked reporting requirements for alternative investment funds (AIFs). In scrip specific developments, Reliance Industries jumped as its arm signs agreement to acquire 100% stake in Faradion and IDFC First Bank surged as its board favours merger with IDFC, IDFC Financial Holding. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly higher in a thin holiday trade with lack of risk appetite in the market.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 58259.21, up by 464.89 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 57846.52 and 58304.82. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.19%, while Small cap index was up by 1.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 2.36%, Basic Materials up by 2.08%, Consumer Durables up by 1.86%, Telecom up by 1.68% and Auto was up by 1.41%, while there were no losing indices on BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Ultratech Cement up by 3.18%, Titan Company up by 3.17%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 2.11%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.03% and SBI was up by 1.64%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.58%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.74%, Infosys down by 0.43%, Power Grid down by 0.19% and Dr. Reddy's Lab was down by 0.07% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, finance ministry has extended the benefit of reduced performance security of 3 percent for all central government tenders/contracts issued/concluded till March 31, 2023. According to the rules, a successful bidder awarded a government contract has to deposit a performance security of 5-10 per cent of the value of the contract with the government.

With this relief, the industry could deploy additional resources in project execution as timely and economical project execution by industry is vital for high speed development of infrastructure as envisaged through the National Infrastructure Pipeline. The relief has benefitted industries especially in construction, manufacturing and service sectors and will enable them to respond with vigour to the demands of the government for efficient execution of the projects.

In November 2020, the finance ministry had reduced this performance security to 3 per cent for all tenders/contracts issued or concluded till December 31, 2021, in order to help commercial entities and contractors tide over the liquidity crunch post the first wave of the COVID pandemic.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17358.75, up by 154.80 points or 0.90% after trading in a range of 17238.50 and 17367.80. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 5.02%, Ultratech Cement up by 3.21%, Titan Company up by 3.12%, Shree Cement up by 3.04% and JSW Steel was up by 2.28%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.62%, Cipla down by 0.80%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.72%, Infosys down by 0.45% and SBI Life Insurance was down by 0.14% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly higher; Hang Seng increased 285.66 points or 1.24% to 23,397.67 and Shanghai Composite was up by 19.64 points or 0.54% to 3,638.83. On the flip side, Straits Times was down by 2.96 points or 0.09% to 3,123.68.

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