Post Session: Quick Review

Bourses finally succumbed to selling pressure, a day after consolidation and ended weak with a cut of over half a percent on last trading session of the week. Squaring off position by market-participants ahead of the general elections, scheduled to start next week led to second successive down session at D-Street. However, the session clearly belonged to broader indices which outperformed larger peers and went home with gains in the range of 0.35%-0.80%. Meanwhile, both Sensex and Nifty, nursing heavy losses, settled below the crucial 22,400 and 6,700 levels respectively.

Absence of any positive trigger at home front combined with feeble global cues mainly prompted traders to cash their position. Earlier in the session, the sentiments got dampened after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reiterated that internal factors played a much larger role in pulling down India's economic growth, which slumped to decade’s low level of 4.5% in 2012-13, than external ones.

On the global front, Asian stocks edged lower on Friday, at the end of a broadly positive week for the region, as investors waited for the US labor report later in the day.  Markets were cautious ahead of the main monthly health check on the world’s largest economy. The Labor Department’s March jobs report is expected to show an increase in hiring after a winter slowdown, with economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecasting that the economy added 200,000 jobs last month, up from 175,000 in February.  On the flip side, European shares advanced for a ninth straight session on Friday, with investors betting a US jobs report would show recent economic weakness was due to the cold winter and that the recovery remains on track

Closer home, amidst across the board selling pressure, stocks from Realty Metal, Consumer Durable counters outperformed. On the flip side, stocks from Auto, IT and Technology stocks were the top losers of the session. Losses in technology stocks came even as rupee depreciated substantially past 60.30/$ level, while Auto stocks succumbed to profit-booking after two consecutive sessions of gains. Among non-sectoral guage activities’, sugar companies’ shares, Bajaj Hindusthan, Balrampur Chini and Shree Renuka Sugars, were in sweet spot for yet another session on hopes of spike in sugar prices likely boosting manufacturers' margins. Local sugar prices have been hovering near their highest level in 15 months on anticipation of improved demand from bulk consumers like cold drink and ice-cream makers during summer season. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1,648: 1,144, while 138 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 149.57 points or 0.66% to settle at 22,359.50. The index touched a high and a low of 22,525.21 and 22,339.40 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex, 5 stocks gained, while 25 stocks declined. (Provisional)

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices ended higher by 0.37% and 0.80% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty up by 3.37%, Metal up by 0.21%, Consumer Durables up by 0.21%, and PSU up by 0.08% were the only gainers, while Auto down by 1%, IT down by 0.95%, Teck down by 0.92%, Power down by 0.83% and Capital Goods down by 0.74% were the top losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 2.18%, Tata Steel up by 0.80%, SBI up by 0.67%, Coal India up by 0.45% and Hindalco up by 0.33%, while, BHEL down by 2.19%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.97%, NTPC down by 1.95%, Tata Motors down by 1.64% and TCS down by 1.46% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan expressed need for India to match China in accumulating foreign exchange reserves. RBI’s Governor has asserted that the economy cannot be said to be insulated from external shocks, unless foreign domestic exchange reserves rise to the level of China.

Raghuram Rajan stressed that India’s current level of forex reserves are probably not enough to feel safe. Presently, the central bank has $300 billion foreign reserves whereas China's foreign exchange reserves stood at staggering $3.66 trillion as of end 2013, making it the largest in the world. Since Raghuram Rajan assumed office on September 4, the RBI reserve has increased by $25 billion to $300 billion as of March 31. The reserves had surged to an all-time high of $322 billion in September 2011.

The Governor further emphasized that the central bank's intervention in the foreign exchange market is only to curb volatility caused by the higher inflows or outflows and to intervene perfectly the central bank need plenty of reserves. Besides building forex reserves, there is also need to focus on creating policy environment which boosts investor confidence adding that RBI has been taking measures to boost confidence.  India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation volatility gained 2.62% at 22.68 from its previous close of 22.10 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty lost 43.55 points or 0.65% to settle at 6,692.55. The index touched high and low of 6,741.85 and 6,685.15 respectively. Out of the 50 stocks on the Nifty, 15 ended in the green, while 35 ended in the red.

The major gainers of the Nifty were DLF up 2.18%, Cipla up by 2.17%, PNB up by 1.64%, IndusInd Bank up by 1.13% and Tata Steel up by 2.17%.

The key losers were BHEL down by 2.32%, NTPC down by 2.20%, Power Grid down by 2.02%, HCL Tech down by 1.88% and United Spirits down by 1.81%. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 0.22%, UK’s FTSE 100 was up 0.37% and Germany’s DAX was up by 0.34%.

The Asian markets concluded Friday’s trade mostly in red with investors treading cautiously ahead of the US jobs report scheduled to be released later in the day. Taiwan markets remained shut for the trade today on account of Children’s Day holiday. Indonesia’s central bank is expected to leave the benchmark policy rate unchanged when its board of Governors will meet on Tuesday, as pressure has eased on both the current-account deficit and the rupiah. The street is projecting that Bank Indonesia (BI) would keep the policy rate unchanged at 7.50% for a fifth consecutive month.

Chinese commercial banks saw their non-performing loans jump by more than 20% to 592 billion yuan (almost $95 billion) in 2013. Likewise, the ratio of non-performing loans to total lending has also edged up to 1% of banks’ total portfolio in 2013, up from 0.95% in 2012. Malaysia’s trade balance rose more-than-expected last month. Malaysian Trade Balance rose to 10.40B, from 6.40B in the preceding month. Philippines CPI fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of -0.1%, from 0.1% in the preceding quarter.