Benchmarks to make gap-up opening of new week

Indian markets ended higher on Friday amid positive global cues as trade-war fears receded and more countries announced plans to ease their lockdown restrictions. Today, the start of new week is likely to be gap-up following firm global cues and ahead of macro-economic data like IIP, CPI and WPI to be out later in the week. Traders will be eyeing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s another meeting with chief ministers (CMs) of all states on May 11. He is expected to discuss the plan for exit from the ongoing nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Besides, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a meeting with top executives of state-run banks on May 11 to review a raft of issues, including credit flow to key sectors like MSMEs and NBFCs, rate transmission to borrowers and progress under the targeted long-term repo operations (TLTRO). Some support will come with report that the government is working on several initiatives, such as preparation of huge land pools, to attract potential investors to India amid the coronavirus-triggered turbulence. Meanwhile, the government has raised the estimated gross market borrowing for FY 2020-21 to Rs 12 lakh crore from Rs 7.80 lakh crore as per Budget Estimates (BE) 2020-21. Though, there may be some cautiousness with the Worldometer data showing that the number of coronavirus cases in India jumped to 67,161 and the death toll rose to 2,212 by May 11. Traders may be concerned with a private brokerage firm cutting steeply its FY2021 GDP forecast for India from -0.4% to -5.2%. The firm added that the government's decision to borrow Rs 12 lakh crore (revised higher from Rs 7.8 lakh crore) means that the fiscal deficit, by the official math, can be pegged at 5.5-6% of GDP. Meanwhile, Indian Railways will resume booking passenger train tickets on the IRCTC website from May 11. There will be some buzz in the banking stocks with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) data showing that bank credit and deposits grew by 6.74% and 9.82% to Rs 102.69 lakh crore and Rs 137.11 lakh crore in the fortnight ended April 24. There will be some reaction in pharma stocks the Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) report that the drop in exports in February and March has dragged pharmaceutical export growth down to a single digit of 7.57% to $20.58 billion in the year 2019-20.

The US markets ended higher on Friday even though the Labor Department released a report showing a record nosedive in US employment in the month of April. Asian markets are trading in green on Monday as investors looked ahead to more countries restarting their economies.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks traded on positive note for whole day and ended with gains of over half percent on Friday, tracking positive cues from global markets. Equity indices made a gap-up opening, as traders got encouragement with Giridhar Aramane, Secretary in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ statement that the government is working on a comprehensive financial package not only for MSMEs but for all sectors of the economy. Sentiments also remained up-beat with chief economic adviser (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian expressing optimism that the Indian economy will stage a better recovery once the Covid-19 outbreak subsides and it will be a V-shaped recovery. Traders also took note of report that the Central Board of Direct taxes (CBDT) has amended a rule to settle disputes expeditiously under mutual agreement procedure (MAP), which is a dispute resolution process under tax treaties. However, indices gave up most of their early gains in final hour of trade to come off their intraday high points, as market-men got anxious with Moody's Investors Service projecting India's growth at zero percent for the current fiscal (FY21) and said the negative outlook on sovereign rating reflects increasing risks that GDP growth will remain significantly lower than in the past. It also noted that the outlook also partly shows weaker policy effectiveness to address economic and institutional issues. But, trade remained in green as some optimism remained among traders with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stating that public sector banks (PSBs) sanctioned loans worth Rs 5.66 lakh crore for more than 41.81 lakh accounts, during March-April 2020. She noted that these borrowers hail from a variety of sectors like micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), retail, agriculture and corporate, waiting for disbursal soon after the lockdown is lifted. The finance minister said that the economy is poised to recover. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 199.32 points or 0.63% to 31,642.70, while the CNX Nifty was up by 52.45 points or 0.57% to 9,251.50.