3.54 PM IST: Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) shares were on a roll on Monday, the first day of an action-packed week for Indian stock markets. The stock hit a fresh nine-year high of Rs 1,307.05 and ended at Rs 1,304.90, a gain of 3.69 percent.
The BSE Sensex ended 216 points higher at 29,048 while the NSE Nifty closed 66 points higher at 8,963. Markets are apparently pinning their hopes on a BJP win in Uttar Pradesh where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been vigorously campaigning for the past three days in Varanasi, his constituency. Polling in 49 Assembly seats including eight in Varanasi will be held on Wednesday (March 8).
Top Sensex gainers included RIL, Adani Ports, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel.
1.43 PM IST: The BSE Sensex had shed its morning gains and was trading 145 points higher at Rs 1,301 (up 3.43 percent) after hitting a new 52-week high of Rs 1,309.90. The stock has been climbing in bullish estimates for its telecom business, Reliance Jio.
In a presentation, the RIL management shared its telecom plans of Reliance Jio (RJio).
RJio plans to hit Rs 100,000 crore (Rs 1 trillion) in revenues in one to two years with the revenue mix shifting from voice to data.
"JIO caters to 85% of mobile data traffic in India today and can support about 60% of forecasted data traffic in FY21. ) On the back of JIO, India has become the largest market for data – 100 crore GB/month against 71 GB/month in US," JM Financial Research said in a note.
Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty opened with gains on Monday, shrugging off global cues that suppressed sentiments on Asian equity markets over China projecting a GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent for the current year and concerns over interest rate hike by the US Fed.
The BSE Sensex was up almost 200 points at 29,032 at around 10 am led by Reliance Industries, NTPC, SBI and Coal India.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) shares were up 3.06 percent at Rs 1,297 apiece, NTPC was trading 1.54 percent at Rs 158, State Bank of India (SBI) was trading 1.30 percent higher at Rs 268 and Coal India Ltd. (CIL) shares were up 1.31 percent at Rs 326.
Sentiments were apparently boosted by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council clearing the draft laws at its meeting last Saturday, raising confidence the GST will be rolled out by the revised deadline of July 1 (the earlier deadline was April 1) this year.
The suspension of premium processing of H1-B visas by the Donald Trump administration could impact Indian IT companies in a limited way, according to brokerage Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities.
"The premium processing option allowed companies to pay an extra $1,225 per visa to have their petitions reviewed in two weeks, rather than the usual two to six months. In response to this development, industry body NASSCOM put out a statement on 5 March 2017 that 'temporary suspension of premium H-1B processing will create some process delays for companies - Indian and American - but is not a significant impediment," it said in a note.
The possibility of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rate hike weighed in on US and European stock markets last week, resulting in weak closing.
"US markets remained lacklustre on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen signalled on Friday that the Fed will likely resume raising interest rates later this month to reflect a strengthening job market and inflation coming at central bank's target. European market closed on a mixed note ahead of the US Fed's chairman Yellen's comments," brokerage Angel Broking said in a note on Monday.
The Indian rupee opened higher at 66.77 to the US dollar on Monday.
