India : Sensex, Nifty flat amid mixed Asian cues; ITC, Dr Reddy’s gain

Mumbai : Equity benchmarks opened on a flat note amid mixed Asian cues. The Sensex was up 35.97 points at 27202.84, and the Nifty gained 6.05 points at 8342.The broader markets outperformed benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.2 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was also positive as about 923 shares advanced against 389 declining shares on Bombay Stock Exchange.

Bharti Airtel and Dr Reddy’s Labs gained over a percent followed by ITC, HDFC, SBI, L&T and HUL while Infosys, HDFC Bank, TCS, Bajaj Auto, Reliance Industries and NTPC declined.

Punjab National Bank climbed over 3 percent as its subsidiary housing finance company has received approval for listing IPO from National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange.

Asian markets were mixed with Shanghai and Nikkei falling half a percent while Hang Seng gained 0.8 percent.

Robert Buckland of Citi says following the Brexit vote, Citi economists cut their global 2017 real GDP growth forecast to 2.6 percent.”This suggests EPS growth in the 0-5 percent region, not the +13 percent currently being forecast by the analyst consensus,” he says.

According to Buckland, further downgrades would be a drag on global equities.

“We are reassured by the recent resilience of emerging markets equities and remain overweight. Valuations are attractive and stabilising commodity prices should help,” he says.

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