Markets to make a positive start of the crucial week

The Indian markets consolidated in the last session and the benchmarks ended almost flat with Sensex slightly dipping into red. Today, the start of the crucial week is likely to be in green tailing positive global cues. Traders will be getting some support with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India’s GDP may grow at 7.7 per cent in 2018, as global growth is expected to improve further in 2017-18. Meanwhile the four GST bills will be taken up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha during the week. However, there will be some cautiousness too in the markets, with the Core sector growth slowing to a 15-month low in February, led by a drop in cement output. Growth, as measured by the index of eight core industries, eased to 1 per cent in February from 3.4 per cent in January and 9.4 per cent a year earlier. The rate sensitive sectors will keep buzzing through the week, eyeing the RBI policy decision. The Auto sector stock will be reacting to their monthly sales numbers for the month of March, while the telecom stocks too will be in action, as the cellular operators' body COAI has said Reliance Jio’s latest pricing will continue to bleed the industry and there is risk of cascading impact on banks and others that have large exposure to the telecom sector.

The US markets closed flat with a negative bias in the last session, following a lackluster performance over the course of the session. The failure of the Republican healthcare bill has led to uncertainty about Trump's ability to achieve his policy goals and traders remained concerned about that. The Asian markets have made mostly a positive start with traders eyeing the meeting between China President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump.  Japanese market was trading higher after a report showed an improving outlook among the countries’ largest firms, while markets in China and Taiwan are closed for holidays.

Back home, it turned out to be a lackadaisical performance from the Indian equity indices on Friday, as they failed to snap the session in the positive territory and ended on flat note as traders avoided taking long positions ahead of the end of the fiscal year 2017. Sentiments remained subdued with the report that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to keep key interest rates unchanged on April 6, 2017. The RBI shifted to a neutral stance from accommodative in February and this, in turn, may prompt the central bank to hold rates in the ensuing meet early next month. However, losses remained capped with the report that India's consumer confidence is highest compared to other emerging market peers. According to the Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer Scorecard, India has the highest consumer confidence score among the eight emerging markets surveyed -- Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. India's buoyant consumer sentiment was supported by consumers' greater confidence in their current and future finances, as well as relatively lower inflation expectations. Some support also came with Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das’ statement that the GST will give a boost to the real economy at the expense of the parallel shadow economy and the indirect tax regime would raise gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 1.5-2 percentage points. Das also said that the tax net will be widened under the new regime and this may result in reduction of general tax rate. With GST rollout looking imminent from July 1 after the Lok Sabha's approval, the Centre and states will sit together today to finalise rules and regulations of the new indirect tax regime. The Lok Sabha on Wednesday cleared four supplementary GST legislations -- Central GST (CGST), Integrated GST (IGST), Union Territory GST (UTGST) and the Compensation law. Finally, the BSE Sensex declined 26.92 points or 0.09% to 29620.50, while the CNX Nifty steady at its previous close of 9173.75.