Market ends at new 1-month record closing high; ITC, SBI gain

3:30 pm Market closing: The market has ended at 1-month record closing high. the Sensex is up 52.90 points or 0.2 percent at 26747.18, and the Nifty is up 14.90 points or 0.2 percent at 8261.75. About 1436 shares advanced, 1180 shares declined, and 182 shares were unchanged.

SBI, ICICI Bank, ONGC, Axis Bank and ITC were gainer while Bajaj Auto, Coal India, HDFC, M&M and Cipla were losers in the Sensex.

2:55 pm Market Update: Equity benchmarks retained morning gains with the Sensex rising 74.98 points to 26769.26 and the Nifty climbing 15.80 points to 8262.65.

About 1415 shares advanced against 1118 declining shares on the BSE.

2:45 pm FM on cash crunch: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said steps have been taken to ensure availability of cash in the rural areas.

Currency notes are supplied by the RBI through currency chests maintained in the banks, keeping in mind the requirement in various areas and regions, he said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

"Steps have been taken to ensure availability of cash in rural branches of Banks and 1.55 lakh Post Offices. The network of 1.2 lakh Banking Correspondents has also been activated with higher cash holding limits," the Finance Minister added.

Moreover, he said, states have been requested to identify the rural pockets where availability of cash has been a problem and provide all support to the banks and post offices to ensure the last mile distribution of notes through mobile banking vans and banking correspondents.

2:31 pm Equalisation levy: Government has garnered Rs 146 crore by way of 'Equalisation Levy', which was introduced in this year's Budget to tap tax on income accruing to foreign e-commerce companies from India.

A person making payment exceeding in aggregate of Rs 1 lakh a year to a non-resident, who does not has a permanent establishment in India, for online advertisement has to withhold 6 per cent of the amount paid as Equalisation Levy from June 1, 2016.

"The revenue accrued for the government exchequer through the Equalisation Levy amounts to Rs 146.50 crore from June 1-December 3, 2016," Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The levy will only apply to business to business transactions.

"It is levied in-line with the OECD's Base Erosions and Profit Shifting project to tax e-commerce transactions," he said.

2:20 pm Economy growth: The impact of demonetisation will only be short-term and India's growth momentum is likely to get back on recovery path from April next year with support from consumption and exports, says a Morgan Stanley report.

According to the global financial services firm, the currency replacement programme is a roadblock in the short term and GDP growth for the quarters ending December and March is expected to slow down by around 50-75 bps.

The broad growth outlook of the country however, remains unchanged, it said.

"We maintain our overall constructive outlook on India.

We expect growth to be back on the recovery track from 2Q17 after a short period of slowdown between November 2016 and March 2017, due to the currency replacement program," Morgan Stanley said in a research note.

2:00 PM Market Check
Equity benchmarks remained marginally higher with the Nifty holding 8250 amid consolidation, supported by ITC, ICICI Bank, Infosys and Reliance Industries.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 83.55 points at 26777.83 and the 50-share NSE Nifty climbed 16.50 points to 8263.35. The market breadth remained positive as about 1383 shares advanced against 1072 declining shares on the BSE.

The market is expected to be volatile and the range could be 8150-8300, especially ahead of Federal Reserve's policy meeting due next week.

HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Auto and Coal India were down 1-2 percent.

Markets in Europe were mixed after the European Central Bank announced an extension of at least nine months of its massive bond-buying program – albeit at a lower monthly amount.

Oil prices extended gains, buoyed by growing optimism that non-OPEC producers might agree to cut output following a cartel agreement to limit production.

US crude futures were up 1.08 percent at USD 51.39 and Brent crude futures gained 0.6 percent at USD 54.22 a barrel.

1:30 pm News: Home-grown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra today said it will stop production on certain days this month besides its planned annual maintenance shutdown at some of its automotive and tractor plants to adjust inventories.

"The company will be undertaking scheduled maintenance shutdown at some of its automotive and tractor plants in December 2016," Mahindra & Mahindra said in a BSE filing.

The company further said it will also "observe on need basis a few days as 'No production days' at some of its automotive and tractor plants", including the Chakan plant of its wholly-owned subsidiary Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers as part of its efforts to optimise inventories during December year-end.

The market is still in green with the Sensex is up 32.66 points at 26726.94. The Nifty is up 1.35 points at 8248.20. About 1355 shares have advanced, 1070 shares declined, and 156 shares are unchanged.

ITC, SBI, ICICI Bank, ONGC and Infosys are top gainers while Bajaj Auto, HDFC, Coal India, M&M and Hero are losers in the Sensex.

Amid a weakening global trend and profit-booking, gold futures fell Rs 37 to Rs 27,740 per 10 gram today as participants trimmed their positions.

Market analysts said the fall in gold futures was mostly in tune with a weak trend overseas amid profit-booking by speculators.

Meanwhile, gold prices in global market retreated as much as 0.28 percent to USD 1,167.10 an ounce in Singapore today.

12:55 pm Market Update: Equity benchmarks continued to gain. The Sensex gained 70.10 points at 26764.38 and the Nifty rose 18 points to 8264.85.

About 1381 shares advanced against 998 declining shares on the BSE.

12:42 pm M&M to stop production: Home-grown auto major Mahindra and Mahindra today said it will stop production on certain days this month besides its planned annual maintenance shutdown at some of its automotive and tractor plants to adjust inventories.

"The company will be undertaking scheduled maintenance shutdown at some of its automotive and tractor plants in December 2016," Mahindra & Mahindra said in a BSE filing.

The company further said it will also "observe on need basis a few days as 'No production days' at some of its automotive and tractor plants", including the Chakan plant of its wholly-owned subsidiary Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers as part of its efforts to optimise inventories during December year-end.

"The management does not envisage any adverse impact on the availability of products in the market due to adequacy of stocks to serve the market requirements," the company said.

12:32 pm Buzzing: Claris Lifesciences shares gained more than 5 percent intraday as quarterly earnings boosted by strong operational performance and US speciality injectable business.

The Ahmedabad-based healthcare company said consolidated profit in the quarter ended September 2016 shot up 170 percent to Rs 32.4 crore compared with year-ago period despite lower other income. Lower finance cost also aided bottomline.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) surged 274.2 percent year-on-year to Rs 47.9 crore and margin expanded by 1830 basis points to 24.8 percent in Q2, driven by increased sales of own products. Total expenses were down 21.4 percent YoY to Rs 145 crore, which also resulted in margin improvement.

However, its total income fell 2.2 percent to Rs 193 crore compared with corresponding quarter of last fiscal due to lower pass through sales from JV Claris Otsuka.

12:18 pm Interview: Infibeam has not resorted to reduction in workforce to deal with demonetisation, says Neeru Sharma, Director, Infibeam. Instead, the shift to cashless payments has helped increase business for the company.

Cash on delivery option, however, was impacted for a few days post demonetisation, says Sharma.

Infibeam will soon provide online e-commerce platform services to Sears Holding, an American company that run retail stores like Sears and Kmart. Sharma says the deal is in line with the company's growth strategy.

12:00 pm Market Check
Equity benchmarks continued to gain amid consolidation in noon trade as investors awaited the outcome of Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting that will start next week. Majority of economists expect Fed rate hike but the commentary on further rate hike is key to watch out for.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 82.36 points at 26776.64 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 21.05 points at 8267.90. About 1385 shares advanced against 877 declining shares on the BSE.

"I would call the current rally as a recovery and probably not a rally because the participation in this recovery is comparatively very less and at the same time people are on sidelines. They are holding cash, not investing enough because the amount of selling pressure that we saw in earlier period when the rupee slipped close to 69/USD, at that point of time the serious threat was it would breach 70/USD plus, so people started staying on the sidelines," Deven Choksey of KR Choksey said.

HDFC, Bajaj Auto, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero Motocorp and Coal India were down 1-2 percent whereas ITC, Infosys, ICICI Bank, SBI, Tata Motors and ONGC gained 1-2 percent.

Asian markets were mixed, despite the post-election rally in US stocks, as South Korean shares fell amid political turmoil. In South Korea, the Kospi fell 0.3 percent as investors waited on the fate of incumbent President Park Geun-hye, who is facing a historic impeachment vote by the parliament, which could see her ousted from office.

11:45 am International markets: The global rally still has legs left, believes Herald Van Der Linde, Head of Equity Strategist, Asia-Pacific at HSBC. Once Donald Trump comes in, his policies will become clearer. HSBC also expects inflation expectations in the Eurozone and the US to come down. In the Asian basket, HSBC is overweight on India. The domonetisation scheme, Van Der Linde said, is getting priced in by the markets now. In India, pockets like banks are looking interesting.

11:30 am FII view: The market has not made a strong bottom yet and the current up move is only a recovery, feels Gautam Shah, Associate Director & Technical Analyst at JM Financial. Sharing his take on the markets with CNBC-TV18 Shah says, "There is no evidence on charts to suggest the market has bottomed out." He sees 7,700-7,800 as a strong bottom for the Nifty and believes the index will resume its downtrend once it hits 8,350-8,400. However, he is fairly confident that 2017 is going to see the second phase of the bull run that was halted in November following demonetisation. Shah is not surprised by the strength in the US indices and expects the Dow to test 20,000 in the near-term. However, he cautions that any decline in the markets there could spell trouble for India.

The market is on consolidation mode as the Sensex is up 53.04 points or 0.2 percent at 26747.32. The Nifty is up 7.65 points at 8254.50. About 1326 shares have advanced, 807 shares declined, and 127 shares are unchanged.

ITC, ONGC, Infosys, SBI and Tata Motors are top gainers while Bajaj Auto, HDFC twins, Coal India and Hero MotoCorp.

Ending its three-day winning run, the rupee today retreated from nearly a one-month high by falling 22 paise to 67.58 against the US dollar in early trade at the forex market on fresh demand for the American unit. Moreoever, weakness in other currencies including euro against the dollar after European Central Bank's decision to extend asset purchases until the end of next year, weighed on the rupee, forex dealers said.
   
However, a higher opening of the domestic equity market,capped the fall, the brokers added. Yesterday, the rupee had gained 27 paise to close at a near one-month high of 67.36 against the US currency due to continuous selling of the greenback by exporters and banks.

10:51 am Fitch on banks: Banks in China and India will continue to remain under pressure next year due to mounting bad loans, even though earnings and capital buffers are strong enough to withstand any serious threat, Fitch warned.

"Our 2017 outlook on more than three-quarters of the banks in the region is negative. Though earnings and capital buffers are generally strong enough to withstand these trends, we expect viability ratings to remain under pressure in China and India," Fitch said in a report.

In the 2017 outlook on Asia-Pacific banks, Fitch said, "most of Asia-Pacific's banks are facing a cyclical deterioration in asset quality in 2017, as a challenging economic environment continues to put pressure on borrowers.

Noting that there has been a rapid build-up of private sector debt--both corporates as well as households-- in a number of APAC economies since 2009, the report said the resultant vulnerabilities will continue to be tested in 2017.

10:38 am Buzzing: Banco Products shares rallied more than 7 percent intraday after the company dropped its share buyback proposal.

"After detailed deliberations and discussions, the board of directors decided to drop the proposal of buyback of equity shares of the company and decided not to further proceed with the proposal," the company said in its filing.

Banco is engaged in the business of manufacturing of original equipment for commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and industrial products. It is also India's largest exporter of aftermarket radiators to the Europe.

Company's consolidated profit in the quarter ended September 2016 increased 28.3 percent year-on-year to Rs 31.98 crore and revenue grew by 9 percent to Rs 374.71 crore compared with year-ago period.

10:22 am IPO: The Rs 1,332-crore initial public offering of drug maker Laurus Labs was subscribed over four times on the final day of the bidding.

The IPO received bids for over 10.01 crore shares as against the total issue size of over 2.19 crore scrips, drawing a subscription of 4.57 times as per NSE data.

The portion set aside for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was oversubscribed 10.54 times, while HNIs quota received 3.58 times subscription. The quota for retail investors was oversubscribed 1.67 times.

"We take this opportunity to thank all the investors who have shown trust in our business and helped make our maiden IPO a successful one. I assure them of keeping their trust in us justified in the future as well," Laurus Labs Founder Promoter and CEO Satyanarayana Chava said.

10:15 am FII View: The global rally still has legs left, believes Herald Van Der Linde, Head of Equity Strategist, Asia-Pacific at HSBC. Once Donald Trump comes in, his policies will become clearer.

HSBC also expects inflation expectations in the Eurozone and the US to come down.

In the Asian basket, HSBC is overweight on India. The domonetisation scheme, Van Der Linde said, is getting priced in by the markets now. In India, pockets like banks are looking interesting.

10:00 am Market Check
Equity benchmarks as well as broader markets entered into consolidation phase with the Nifty hovering around 8250 after yesterday's sharp rally.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 41.16 points at 26735.44 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 0.95 points at 8247.80. The market breadth was positive as about 1081 shares advanced against 704 declining shares on the BSE.

Analysts expect the consolidation to continue till the outcome of Federal Reserve's two-day meeting that will start on December 13.

Globally analysts expect the Fed chair Janet Yellen to hike interest rate in this meeting but the commentary is very important to watch out for.

Sheela Foam started off trade on a strong note, rising more than 39 percent to hit an intraday high of Rs 1,018 in early trade. The stock opened at Rs 860 on the National Stock Exchange against issue price of Rs 730.

Infosys, ITC, Tata Motors, ONGC, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries and TCS continued to gain, up 0.6-1.8 percent while HDFC Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp, Lupin, HUL, Sun Pharma and Coal India fell 0.4-1.2 percent.

9:55 am New listing: Sleepwell mattress maker Sheela Foam is set to debut on bourses. It has fixed issue price at higher end of price band of Rs 680-730 per share.

The Rs 510-crore initial public offer was oversubscribed 5.09 times on December 1, the last day for subscription. The issue was opened on November 29.

Out of total issue size, Sheela Foam, on November 28, had raised around Rs 153 crore by allotting shares to anchor investors like Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, East Spring, HDFC MF, SBI MF, ICICI Prudential AMC, Premji Investment, IDFC MF and Sundaram MF.

9:45 am Banks in soup? Banks in China and India will continue to remain under pressure next year due to mounting bad loans, even though earnings and capital buffers are strong enough to withstand any serious threat, Fitch warned.

"Our 2017 outlook on more than three-quarters of the banks in the region is negative. Though earnings and capital buffers are generally strong enough to withstand these trends, we expect viability ratings to remain under pressure in China and India," Fitch said in a report.

In the 2017 outlook on Asia-Pacific banks, Fitch said, "most of Asia-Pacific's banks are facing a cyclical deterioration in asset quality in 2017, as a challenging economic environment continues to put pressure on borrowers.

9:30 am FII view: Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley says he believes India will exit the low return environment of the past two years, thanks to better equity valuations.

According to him, equities are likely to deliver 14 percent rupee returns in 2017, compared with negative 3 percent in 2015 and 2016.

Desai says equity valuations relative to bonds are the best since 2013. India is one of his top emerging markets picks.

The market has opened firm as the Sensex is up 105.86 points or 0.4 percent at 26800.14. The Nifty is up 24.85 points or 0.3 percent at 8271.70. About 223 shares have advanced, 41 shares declined, and 9 shares are unchanged.

Adani Ports, Hero MotoCorp, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki and Coal India while Dr Reddy's Labs and Wipro are losers in the Sensex.

The Indian rupee has opened lower by 14 paise at 67.49 per dollar on Friday versus previous close 67.35.

The euro dropped over 1 percent overnight after the European Central Bank extended asset purchases until the end of next year and President Mario Draghi said cuts to the size of the program should not be viewed as tapering. The dollar index gained.

Asian shares flatlined but were on track for robust weekly gains, while the euro caught its breath after sliding when the European Central Bank trimmed the size of its asset purchase program and also extended it for longer than many had expected.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan wobbled close to the previous session's close in early trading, poised for a weekly gain of 2.2 percent.
Japan's Nikkei stock index was up 0.6 percent, up 2.4 percent for the week in which the dollar gained 0.6 percent against the yen.

Major US stock indexes climbed again on Thursday and set fresh record highs as a month-long rally following the presidential election of Donald Trump rolled on. Investors have driven up equities since Trump's November 8 election over optimism about domestic economic stimulus and reduced corporate taxes and regulations.

Among asset classes, crude prices gain 2 percent overnight as market watchers focused on today's meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers that may result in an agreement to cut crude output further. Gold prices slip as US dollar strengthened.