Markets to make a positive start on sanguine global cues

The Indian markets suffered serious drubbing in the last session with Nifty50 wiping out all the gains logged in last four sessions and ending below the 9,800 mark, not only India, stock markets across the globe declined as escalating geopolitical tensions on the Korean Peninsula weighed on market sentiment. Today, the penultimate session of the F&O expiry is likely to be in green and markets will try to recover some losses of last session. Market may get some support with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that goods and services tax (GST) collections have exceeded estimates in the first month of the landmark levy’s rollout despite a significant number of assessees not having filed returns yet. Finance Minister said that GST mopup in July pegged at Rs 92,283 crore and could rise further. Meanwhile, NITI Aayog has said that Enhancing access to low-cost capital to businesses could serve as an important vehicle for improving the business environment, especially in poor states like Bihar. There will be buzz in the infra sector stocks too, as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India could no longer afford to delay modernisation of its infrastructure if the country was to scale new heights.

The US markets coming off their early weakness posted modest gains in the last session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average representing the biggest single-day comeback of the year after President Donald Trump said in a statement that “all options are on the table” for dealing with North Korea. The Asian markets have made a mixed start, while Japanese market was flat in early trade as the yen weakened.

Back home, Tuesday turned out to be a daunting day of trade for Indian equity benchmarks, with frontline gauges shaving off over a percent, breaching their crucial 31,400 (Sensex) and 9,800 (Nifty) levels. After a negative opening, market never looked confident of recovering and gradually extended its losses till end to close near intraday lows, as the firing of a missile over Japan by North Korea rattled investors. Back on regional front, sentiments remained down-beat with NITI Aayog’s report highlighting that there is a huge gap between what the state governments have done to improve ease of doing business and what the enterprises know of these improvements. NITI Aayog has recommended reforming labour laws and a greater flexibility in their implementation to enhance ease of doing business. Some selling also crept in on reports that RBI sent fresh list of defaulters to be send to NCLT by mid-December if unresolved. Videocon Industries, JP Associates, Uttam Galva, Monnet Power, Jai Balaji, Shakti Bhog, SEL Manufacturing, Castex, Visa Steel, Ruchi Soya, Orchid Chemicals and IVRCL are list of companies to be sent to NCLT. Market participants failed to get any sense of relief with domestic rating agency Care Ratings’ report projecting acceleration in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to 6.5% in the first quarter (April-June) of fiscal year 2017-18 over the last year, up from the 6.1% in the preceding quarter. Traders shrugged off Moody’s Investors Services’ latest note where it has said that merging India’s public sector banks will improve their ratings because it will provide efficiencies of scale and enhance the quality of corporate governance. Also, investors paid no heed towards the India Ratings and Research’s (Ind-Ra) latest report which enlightened that a new nationwide goods and services tax (GST) rollout will have positive impact on state governments’ finances in the medium to long term. Finally, the BSE Sensex lost 362.43 points or 1.14% to 31,388.39, while the CNX Nifty was down by 116.75 points or 1.18% to 9,796.05.