After trading in the positive territory during post noon trading session, the Indian equity markets gathered steam and closed the day in the green. While the BSE Sensex today closed higher by 165 points, the NSE-Nifty closed higher by 53 points. In this process the Sensex scaled 28,500 mark today. However, Midcaps and Smallcaps closed weak. While the BSE Mid Cap index was up by 0.07% the BSE Small Cap index closed lower by 0.06%. IT and metal stocks were the biggest gainers today.
As regards global markets, the Asian pack closed strong today. The rupee was trading at Rs 61.92 to the dollar at the time of writing.
Metal stocks ended the day on a strong note with Jindal Steel and SAIL being the biggest gainers after China cut its benchmark interest rate on Friday. This was the first cut in two years where the one year lending rate was cut by 40 bps to 5.6%. The deposit rate was also lowered by 25 bps to 2.75%. Investors believe that a rate a cut will fuel investment demand. This indicates good news for metal companies as China consumes around half of the world's metals. As a result, the entire metal pack displayed a strong rally today.
Auto stocks ended the day on a mixed note today. HeroMoto Corp was the biggest gainer while Ashok Leyland led the pack of losers. Maruti is planning to launch a new compact multi-utility vehicle (MUV) soon. The new model is especially designed for India and shall be placed under flagship Ertiga. The company plans to launch the MUV in festive season of 2016 and is targeting sales of around 80,000 units in the first year itself. It has already floated proposals to vendors in that regards. Considering the stiff competition in the market place it would be interesting to see how the company positions its new MUV and whether it shall get good response or not.
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