Markets likely to make cautious start of the new week

Extending southward journey for second straight session, Indian markets witnessed bloodbath on Friday as investors remained anxious over liquidity concerns in non-bank lenders impacting the financial sector coupled with weak global cues. Today, the markets are likely to make cautious start of the new week tracking mixed global cues. Traders will be concerned with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) report showing that India’s forex reserves declined by $5.14 billion during the week ended October 12, when the rupee slipped to 74 and beyond against the US dollar. The RBI’s weekly statistical supplement showed that overall forex reserves decreased to $394.46 billion from $399.60 billion reported for the week ended October 5. There will be some cautiousness with Traders’ body CAIT warning that allowing central as well as state tax administrations to initiate action against any taxpayer irrespective of jurisdiction would lead to harassment of traders and complicate the tax system. Meanwhile, a private report stated that the ongoing liquidity squeeze will slow down non-banks home loan disbursements. It added home prices, which have witnessed a relative slowdown in growth, will continue to be under pressure. However, some support may came later in the day with a private report stating that India is likely to emerge as the third-largest economy in the world in just over a decade from now, surpassing Japan and Germany. Traders may take note of a report that in an effort to ease current liquidity crunch, the RBI allowed banks to use government securities equivalent to their incremental credit to non-banking lenders for a three-month period starting October 20 to meet their liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) needs. The provision, which can free Rs 50,000-60,000 crore of liquidity which banks can lend to NBFCs, will be available to banks up to December 31. There will be lots of important earnings announcements too, to keep the markets in action.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Friday as concerns about rising interest rates and tension between the US and Saudi Arabia continued to weigh on the markets. Asian markets were trading mostly in green on Monday as Chinese stocks swung higher for a second session and helped offset geopolitical concerns over Saudi Arabia, Italy and Brexit.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks logged deep losses on the last trading day of the week, with both Sensex and Nifty ending over 1% cut each. The start of the day was negative, amid State Bank of India’s latest research report stating that depreciation of rupee has neither helped in improving exports nor in slowing imports, leading to an incremental trade deficit of $4 billion in the first half of the current fiscal (H1FY19). Domestic sentiments also got hit by credit rating agency Care Ratings’ latest report that job creation by corporate India dropped to 3.8% in 2017-18 from 4.2% growth achieved in 2016-17, with jobs in smaller firms being hit the hardest. Sentiments remained pessimistic throughout the day with a private report stating that consumer confidence in the Indian economy plummeted by about 7 points in the month of October due to a clutch of macroeconomic problems causing personal finance issues. India’s consumers have become more nervous about rising fuel prices and crumbling stock markets amid the festivities. Some concerns also came with a private report stating that in 2018, in USD terms wealth in India grew a modest 2.6% to around $6 trillion and wealth per adult stayed flat at $7,020. Traders overlooked a private study report stating that flexible working could contribute $376 billion annually to the Indian economy by 2030 as shared office space helps corporates to save cost and boost employee productivity. The street also failed to take any sense of relief with Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) report that India’s investment cycles in the last 60 years has revealed that the latest investment upswing will run till 2022-23 to the peak of 33% from the current rate of 31%. The markets participants remained pessimistic even though the Finance Ministry allayed fears among businesses about reconciliation of returns and said the deadline to avail input tax credit (ITC) for last financial year (FY18) will remain October 20. Meanwhile, the RBI announced more measures to increase liquidity flows to the NBFCs. The RBI permitted banks to use government securities equal to their incremental outstanding credit to NBFCs, over and above their outstanding credit to them as on October 19, to be used to meet liquidity coverage ratio requirements. Finally, the BSE Sensex plunged 463.95 points or 1.33% to 34,315.63, while the CNX Nifty was down by 149.50 points or 1.43% to 10,303.55.