The Indian markets recovering from their lows managed a positive close in the last session. Today, the start is likely to be mildly green-to-cautious amid lingering geo-political worries, traders will also be reacting to trade data announced after the market hours on Friday. India’s exports grew by 10.29 percent on a yearly basis to $23.81 billion in August on account of rise in shipments of engineering, petroleum, chemicals and pharmaceuticals products. Imports too rose by 21.02 percent to $ 35.46 billion in August from $29.30 billion in the year-ago month due to rise in inward shipments of crude oil and gold. The trade deficit in the month widened to $ 11.64 billion from $ 7.7 billion during the same month a year ago. There will be buzz in the oil sector stocks, as the industry chamber Assocham has called for a cut in the cess on transport fuels, saying that the consumer is getting restive about a three-year high in the petrol prices and feels the market pricing mechanism is being distorted by tax hikes on petrol and diesel. Meanwhile, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has called for a ‘uniform tax mechanism’ across the country for petroleum products and said that said petroleum products will need to be brought under the ambit of the goods and services tax (GST). There will be buzz from the primary market too, where Dixon Technologies and Bharat Road Network, will make stock market debut. Dixon Technologies’ IPO was subscribed 117.83 times, while Bharat Road Network was subscribed 1.81 times.
The US markets surged in the last session, with Dow and S&P climbing to new record closing highs, as traders shrugged off some disappointing economic reports, as the data was impacted by Hurricane Harvey. The Asian markets have made mostly a positive start and some of the indices are up by over half a percent, as havens retreated after the worst-case scenarios for North Korea and hurricanes in the U.S. didn’t eventuated.
Back home, Buying which emerged in last leg of trade helped markets to erase all of their initial losses to end flat on Friday. Markets started off on pessimistic note, as geo-political worries resurfaced with North Korea’s new provocative move of firing another ballistic missile over Japan. Key gauges traded in red terrain for most part of the day, as sentiments remained dampened with SBI research report stating that country’s GDP is likely to remain below 6 percent in the second quarter of 2017-18 owing to muted agriculture growth and sluggish performance of manufacturing and mining sector. The GDP stood at a three year low at 5.7% for April-June quarter of 2017-18, which the report said has raised concerns about the annual GDP numbers for the fiscal. Traders also remained concerned with United Nations’ report stating that effects of demonetisation and rollout of the Goods and Services Tax regime on the informal sector and reduction in pace of credit creation may affect India’s growth prospects and the country unlikely to serve as the ‘growth pole’ for the global economy in the near future. Domestic bourses even went to test psychological 32,150 (Sensex) and 10,050 (Nifty) levels, but the key gauges got some support near those intraday low levels as they trim their losses from thereon and ended near their neutral lines, as investors continued hunt for fundamentally strong stocks. Traders took some sense of relief with report that India and Japan have signed 15 key agreements including open sky agreement, after the historic launch of India's first bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, to further expand the horizon of their bilateral relationship. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 30.68 points or 0.10% to 32272.61; however the CNX Nifty was down by 1.20 points or 0.01% to 10085.40.
