Markets to open slightly in red on Monday

Indian shares succumbed to selling pressure once again on Wednesday after financial and technology shares came under heavy selling pressure elsewhere in the U.S, Europe and Asia on privacy concerns and on worries about tighter industry regulations. Today, the markets are likely to open slightly in red, as traders return to their desks after a four-day long holiday weekend. Investors will look ahead to the RBI policy meeting on April 4-5, although the central bank is unlikely to raise rates despite increased risks to inflation posed by rising oil prices and a hike in minimum support price (MSP) announced in the Budget 2018. Traders will remain concern with the country reporting a fiscal deficit of Rs 7.2 trillion ($110.42 billion) for April-February or 120.3% of the budgeted target for the current fiscal year that ends this month. Net tax receipts in the first 11 months of 2017/18 fiscal year were Rs 1.03 trillion. Adding to the pessimism, the CBI has decided to examine ICICI bank CEO Chanda Kochhar over the Rs 3,250 crore loan sanctioned to the Videocon Group in 2012, notwithstanding a clean chit given by the bank board. Meanwhile, the e-way (electronic way) bill system under Goods and Services Tax (GST) for inter-state movement of goods has come into force from April 1, with over 1.7 lakh electronic invoices expected to have generated on the first day of the rollout aimed at curbing tax evasion by traders and transporters.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday on report from the Labor Department showing initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level in over 45 years in the week ended March 24th. Asian stocks are trading mostly in green in early deals, even as China imposed new tariffs on U.S. goods after previously floating the proposal last month.

Back home, March F&O expiry session turned out to be a dismal day of trade for Indian equity benchmark with frontline gauges ending below their crucial 33,000 (Sensex) and 10,150 (Nifty) levels, as traders remained cautious ahead of a long holiday weekend, with domestic equity markets likely to remain closed on Thursday and Friday, on account of Mahavir Jayanti and Good Friday, respectively. Markets started the session on pessimistic note as sentiments remained downbeat with report that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections slid for the second straight month to Rs 851.74 billion in February as only 69% of the assessees filed returns. Around 5.951 million GSTR 3B returns were filed for the month of February till March 25. This is 69 per cent of total taxpayers who are required to file monthly returns. Sentiments also remained dampened with a private report stating that weak macroeconomic indicators like current account deficit and inflation have exposed India to adverse global macro developments such as US monetary policy trajectory and trade war risks. Factors like expiry of futures and options contracts for the month of March and profit booking on the last trading day for the current financial year 2017-18 before the long term capital gains tax (LTCG) kicks in from April 2, 2018,  also weighed on the sentiments. Meanwhile, government’s Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has said that he wanted a simpler GST structure. He also said that once the GST Council is confident that the revenue through indirect tax is stabilising, it will do more simplification future. Traders failed to get any sense of relief with the commerce ministry’s statement that India and China have agreed to draw-up a medium and long term roadmap with action points and timelines in order to increase bilateral trade in a balanced and sustainable manner. It also pointed out that two neighbouring nations in Asia are the largest emerging economies of the world with 35% of the world's population and about 20% of the world’s GDP, but bilateral trade between the two nations is less than 1% of global trade. Finally, the BSE Sensex declined 205.71 points or 0.62% to 32,968.68, while the CNX Nifty was down by 70.45 points or 0.69% to 10,113.70.