Indian share markets continued to trade strong in the afternoon session ahead of key macroeconomic data to be released later in the day and amid strong Asian markets.
At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex closed higher by 277 points and the NSE Nifty finished up 87 points. The S&P BSE Mid Cap finished up by 1.1% while & S&P BSE Small Cap too finished up by 1%. Gains were largely seen in realty stocks, pharma stocks and energy stocks.
Tata Steel share price surged 3.3% after it was reported that a deal to merge the European steel operations of Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp could be struck this month, after Tata Steel removed a significant obstacle by offloading its UK retirement fund.
Tata Steel had earlier announced that Britain’s pensions regulator has approved a regulated apportionment arrangement in respect of the British Steel Pension Scheme.
Asian stock markets finished broadly higher today with shares in Japan leading the region. The Nikkei 225 is up 1.18% while China’s Shanghai Composite is up 0.09% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up 0.06%. European markets are mixed today. The DAX is up 0.54% while the CAC 40 gains 0.48%. The FTSE 100 is off 0.15%.
The rupee was trading at Rs 63.94 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 47.84 at the time of writing.
As per a leading financial daily, global rating agency, Fitch ratings in its latest report has said that the public sector banks may need around US$ 65 billion of additional capital by March 2019 to meet the new Basel-III capital norms raising concerns over weak capital positions in Indian banking system.
However, this latest estimated amount of capital requirement is lower than previous estimation done by the rating agency at US$ 90 billion, on account of asset rationalization and weaker-than-expected loan growth.
