Share markets in India are presently trading on a positive note.
Benchmark indices rose more than 1% tracking gains in Asian equities, a day after BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty hit two-month closing lows.
The BSE Sensex is trading up by 451 points, up 1.2%, at 37,000 levels.
Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading up by 127 points.
HCL Technologies and Bharti Airtel are among the top gainers today.
The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 1.3%.
The BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 1.4%.
On the sectoral front, gains are largely seen in the telecom sector and IT sector.
US stock futures are trading higher today. Nasdaq Futures are trading up by 28 points (up 0.3%), while Dow Futures are trading up by 90 points (up 0.4%).
The rupee is trading at 73.74 against the US$.
Gold prices are trading down by 0.2% at Rs 49,810 per 10 grams.
In news from the power sector, as per an article in The Economic Times, the power ministry has begun deliberations on bringing electricity under Goods and Services Tax (GST), as a recent study it conducted showed that this would reduce per-unit cost of power to generation, distribution and transmission companies by 17 paise per unit, leading to big savings for consumers.
The ministry has asked NTPC and the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to study and report the benefits and challenges.
The article stated that the cumulative per unit input costs will be reduced by 17 paise per unit for generation, transmission and distribution companies, as input tax credit will be available to them. The per-unit tariff to consumers would come down and benefit the power sector as a whole.
Electricity prices for Indian industries are one of the highest in the world as states charge high tariffs to subsidize agricultural and residential consumers.
All power companies have been supporting GST on electricity, citing lower tariffs to end consumers including industrial units, which in turn may boost the demand for power in the country.
A government official said that high-cost, low-quality power supply is rendering industrial units uncompetitive and adversely affecting the government's Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign at a time when the country's installed generation base is highly underutilized.
Data shows that India's thermal power plants operated at 53% capacity in July this year against 55% a year ago.
How the above developments pan out remains to be seen.
Speaking of the power sector, it is interesting to note that the power exchanged in India is about 4.5% of the overall power production, as can be seen in the chart below:
This is abysmally low by global standards. This shows that there is a big upside in the market share of power exchanges in India.
As per Tanushree Banerjee, India's power sector is currently in transition. It is driven by increasing reliance on short-term contracts and electricity spot markets. This transition to the short-term market is happening due to quickly evolving industry dynamics.
Tanushree believes the Indian power sector will see a surge in spot power volumes due to certain factors.
Moving on to stock-specific news...
Advanced Enzyme Technologies is among the top buzzing stocks today.
Shares of the company rallied 10% in early trade today after foreign portfolio investor (FPI) bought nearly 4% stake in the company via the open market.
The stock of the agricultural products company is trading at its fresh 52-week high and has gained as much as 30% in the past two trading days.
Yesterday, Nalanda India Equity Fund bought 4.19 million equity shares, representing a 3.75% stake in Advanced Enzyme for Rs 1.1 billion.
Exchange data shows that the FPI purchased shares at a price of Rs 263.80 per share on the NSE via bulk deals.
In its annual report 2019-20, the company has said it may benefit from an increase in healthcare spending in the US and India. The US has the highest health spending in the world, and it is drastically moving towards the usage of human healthcare enzymes and Probiotics.
Advanced Enzyme Technologies' share price is presently trading up by 9%.
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