April 17, 2020 / 14:13 IST
The Indian stock market is trading off day's high after RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced additional measures, including reducing reverse repo rate, to support the economy hit by COVID-19 on April 17.
This was the RBI Governor's second press briefing since the spread of COVID-19 in India. In his previous address on March 27, Das had announced a rate cut of 75 basis points and several other measures to support the Indian financial system.
Story continues below Advertisement
RBI has injected funds equalling 3.2 percent of GDP into the economy to tackle the liquidity situation, governor Das said.
Sensex is up 531.28 points or 1.74 percent at 31133.89, and the Nifty jumped 152.90 points or 1.7 percent at 9145.70.
RBI governor said, Targeted Long term repo operations (TLTRO) worth Rs 50,000 crore will be conducted to begin with, in tranches of appropriate sizes. "Based on our assessment, the RBI will increase the size of the TLTRO. The funds availed by banks should be invested in investment-grade bonds companies and at least half of the funds should go to small NBFCs and MFIs," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said.
While the measures of the RBI meet most of the demands by NBFCs -the big ones and small and the medium sized ones as well-the stock price movement in the recent past have mostly discounted it. We may not see any big price appreciation in NBFCs from current levels, said Rajat Bose of rajatkbose.com.
Among the sectors, barring the FMCG space, all other sectors are trading in the green with the auto index jumping over 3 percent.
Story continues below Advertisement
The top gainers included Bharat Forge which surged over 17 percent and witnessed surge in volumes by 3.71 times. It also touched upper circuit of Rs 261.95.
The other gainers included Eicher Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Motherson Sumi Systems, Ashok Leyland and Bosch.
Nifty Financial Services was up over 3 percent with M&M Financial Services, Indiabulls Housing Finance and Cholamandalam Investment surging over 6-12 percent each followed by Shriram Transport Finance, REC, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, Bajaj Finance, and PFC.
Bank Nifty added 2 percent with ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, IDFC First Bank, Federal Bank, Bandhan Bank and Axis Bank being the top gainers.
HDFC Bank was up almost 2 percent after Macquarie has an outperform rating with a target price of Rs 1,124 per share after media reports said the bank has identified three contenders to succeed MD Aditya Puri who is slated to retire in October this year.
Dr Reddy's Labs, Biocon, Cipla and Laurus Labs have hit 52-week high on BSE.
400 stocks have hit upper circuit on BSE including names like Future Retail, Vakrangee, Edelweiss Financial Services, Graphite India, Welspun India, HEG, PNB Housing, IRCTC and PNC Infra among others.
The most active stocks in terms of volumes included Vodafone Idea which was down 6 percent and was trading with volumes of 39,564,249 shares, compared to its five day average of 37,270,091 shares, an increase of 6.16 percent.
ICICI Bank was up over 5 percent and was trading with volumes of 1,835,676 shares, compared to its five day average of 2,329,324 shares, a decrease of -21.19 percent.
Tata Motors was trading with volumes of 2,794,433 shares, compared to its five day average of 4,871,295 shares, a decrease of -42.63 percent.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
