Benchmarks extend losses in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks extended their losses and traded over a percent lower in morning deals, as weak trends in global markets and foreign fund outflows weighed on investor sentiment. Sentiments remained down-beat with the research wing of rating agency Crisil in its latest report said that companies are not able to pass on the pressure from rising input costs to buyers, and this is likely to result in a compression in corporate profit margins for the March quarter (Q4FY22). It said operating profit margins for companies are set to fall by as much as 3 percentage points compared to the year-ago period, and up to 0.60 per cent as compared to the preceding December quarter. Market participants overlooked Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri’s statement that India is on its way to become a global energy superpower in terms of consumption and production. Though, Puri said India had the resources, exploration and production of fossil fuel and gases remain stagnant. He said India will be the energy superpower of the world by the time we will be a $10 trillion economy in 2030.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading in red amid lingering worries over the economic costs of war in Ukraine and a worsening coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai dented investors' appetite for riskier assets. Market participants also looked ahead to the ECB meeting and the release of U.S. inflation data for additional clues about the outlook for monetary policy. Back home, Insurance industry stocks remained in limelight as the non-life insurance industry reported an 11 per cent growth in premiums to Rs 2.20 trillion in FY22 after a low single digit growth in FY21.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 58339.17, down by 625.40 points or 1.06% after trading in a range of 58338.13 and 58743.50. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 1.96%, while Small cap index was down by 1.87%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 3.83%, Realty down by 2.89%, Basic Materials down by 2.48%, Energy down by 2.11% and Capital Goods down by 2.06%, while there were no gaining sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 0.49%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.30% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.16%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 4.26%, Larsen & Toubro down by 2.08%, Bajaj Finserv down by 2.00%, SBI down by 1.90% and Reliance Industries down by 1.84% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has said India is on its way to become a global energy superpower in terms of consumption and production. Though, Puri said India had the resources, exploration and production of fossil fuel and gases remain stagnant. He said India will be the energy superpower of the world by the time we will be a USD 10 trillion economy in 2030.

He mentioned ‘Global energy superpower means we will set the pace for global consumption, becoming a significant producer by way of exploration and production of different sources of energy.’ He stated for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, energy is the priority area, mainly because 85 per cent of India's crude and 55 per cent gas requirement are met through imports, and there was a need to switch to green energy.

Further, he said ‘For many years, we allowed exploration and production to remain stagnant. Now, we have increased that. We had the resources, but we allowed ourselves to be import dependent.’ He added that India's per capita fuel consumption is three times the global per capita consumption. Besides, he said Puri said the PM has set a target of 20 per cent biofuel or ethanol blending by 2025, stating that 20 per cent blended fuel will be made available in small quantities from April 1, 2023.

Moreover, he highlighted India's liquified natural gas regasification capacity has gone up from 21 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) in 2014 to 42 MMTPA now, while the aim was to increase the country's overall LNG regasification capacity to 62.5 MMTPA in the next few years. He also underlined ‘India's refining capacity has increased from 214 MMTPA to 250 MMTPA, and we have set a target of reaching 400 MMTPA in the next few years. Similarly, we aim to increase the gas pipeline network from 18,500 kilometers to 32,000 kilometers in the next five years.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17472.00, down by 202.95 points or 1.15% after trading in a range of 17471.10 and 17594.40. There were 4 stocks advancing against 46 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were TCS up by 0.42%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.34%, HDFC Life Insurance up by 0.27% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.12%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 4.72%, Coal India down by 4.71%, Tata Steel down by 4.26%, Tata Motors down by 3.66% and Grasim Industries down by 3.14% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 106.09 points or 0.5% to 21,102.21, Straits Times trembled 29.28 points or 0.87% to 3,334.28, KOSPI fell 28.66 points or 1.06% to 2,664.44, Shanghai Composite declined 21.02 points or 0.66% to 3,146.11, Nikkei 225 slipped 463.72 points or 1.73% to 26,357.80, Jakarta Composite lost 47.22 points or 0.66% to 7,156.57 and Taiwan Weighted dropped 61.69 points or 0.36% to 16,986.68.