India-US trade deal: D-Street gets Trump card, set for big gains

MUMBAI: A day after sensex and Nifty rallied over 1% to recoup most of the losses suffered on the Budget day, indications are that the gains could leapfrog on Tuesday after late on Monday the US President Donald Trump said that the country has reached an agreement with India for a trade deal.

Monday evening, Trump said that post his call with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a trade deal between the two countries—that had been pending for months—has been agreed. Soon after, the Gift Nifty index spurted sharply and closed 630 points or 2.3% up at 25,765 points. Market players feel this announcement would have a positive impact on the economy and the markets.

According to Siddhartha Sanyal, Chief Economist, Bandhan Bank, the news of reduction of US tariff on India is a major positive, especially soon after the trade deal with the EU. “The end of the stalemate and the direction of the development is more important in this case than the quantum of the change in tariff as it opens room for further positive developments in near future.”




During Monday’s trade, after a flat opening, sensex picked up steam and closed nearly 950 points up at 82,666 points while nifty was up 263 points at 25,088 points. The session was backed mainly by domestic institutions. At close, domestic institutional investors were net buyers at Rs 2,446 crore, BSE data showed. On the other hand, foreign funds were net sellers at Rs 1,832 crore.

During the day’s session, buying was across the board except for some profit taking in IT and healthcare stocks that saw some gains on the Budget day. At close, the BSE’s midcap index was up 0.8% while the smallcap index was up 0.2%. Among sectoral indices, BSE’s utilities index closed 2.7% up while the power index closed 2.5% up and services index was up 2.4% .

The day’s session made investors richer by about Rs 4.6 lakh crore with BSE’s market capitalisation now at Rs 455 lakh crore, data showed.

Among the 30 sensex constituents, 25 closed higher with Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and L&T contributing the most to the day’s gain in the index.

Moving ahead, markets will track the S&P Manufacturing PMI data late on Monday, followed by the US JOLTS job openings data on Tuesday, said Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Research—Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.