Indian equity benchmarks made gap-down opening on Monday tracking weakness in Asian counterparts coupled with sell-off on Wall Street in Friday’s overnight session. Soon, markets tried to trim their losses but failed to hold the momentum and slipped sharply in early deals. Domestic indices are trading in red with cut of around half a percent. Sensex and Nifty are lingering below their crucial 59,200 and 17,400 levels respectively. Heavy selling in counters such as TECK, IT and Telecom dragged the markets lower. Continued sell-off by foreign investors dampened sentiments in domestic markets. Foreign investors have turned cautious and pulled out Rs 2,313 crore from Indian equities so far this month. Also, traders were concerned as latest central bank data showed that the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) foreign exchange reserves declined by $5.7 billion to an 11-week low of $561.27 billion in the week ended February 17.
On the global front, Asian markets are trading lower, following the broadly negative cues from global markets on Friday, as the unexpected spike in US core consumer prices added to recent concerns about the outlook for interest rates as the US Federal Reserve may be inclined to leave interest rates higher for longer. Traders also remain cautious ahead of Bank of Japan governor nominee Kazuo Ueda's appearance before the upper house. Taiwan is closed for Peace Memorial Day holiday. Back home, in stock specific development, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone rose amid report that it has surpassed 300 metric million tones (MMT) of cargo handling in just 329 days.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 59180.94, down by 282.99 points or 0.48% after trading in a range of 59109.12 and 59441.13. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.
The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.90%, while Small cap index was down by 0.90%.
The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.71%, Bankex up by 0.21%, PSU up by 0.07%, while, TECK down by 1.91%, IT down by 1.82%, Telecom down by 1.80%, Auto down by 1.30%, Consumer Durables down by 1.07% were the top losing indices on BSE.
The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.14%, ICICI Bank up by 0.73%, Nestle up by 0.68%, SBI up by 0.61% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.39%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 2.38%, Tata Motors down by 1.73%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.62%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.55% and HCL Technologies down by 1.38% were the top losers.
Meanwhile, expressing his hopes over India’s economic growth, Union minister Piyush Goyal has said that the country would become the third largest economy in the world (from fifth position at present) in the next five years and by 2047 could be at the level the United States of America is at present. He added the 1.4 billion people of India are going to make the economy a $30-40 trillion one.
Regarding India not joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade deal, he said ‘It was disaster in the making as we were entering a free trade agreement without a court of appeal, no democracy or rule of law. Except a handful of people, I don't remember anyone saying we should join RCEP’.
On Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), he said ‘we did the fastest ever FTA in the history of the world, the India UAE Agreement having been completed in 88 days. We also completed a fast FTA with Australia. That is the enthusiasm the world is demonstrating towards working with India. We have negotiations going on with Israel, Canada, EU, UK and GCC. Russia and its partner countries of EAU too want to fast-track negotiations with India.’
The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17376.10, down by 89.70 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 17358.40 and 17451.60. There were 14 stocks advancing against 36 stocks declining on the index.
The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports & SEZ up by 1.35%, NTPC up by 1.11%, SBI up by 0.81%, ICICI Bank up by 0.73% and Nestle up by 0.50%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 3.34%, Bajaj Auto down by 3.25%, Infosys down by 2.46%, UPL down by 2.21% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.93% were the top losers.
All Asian markets are trading lower; Hang Seng declined 149.08 points or 0.75% to 19,860.96, Nikkei 225 slipped 49.35 points or 0.18% to 27,404.13, KOSPI dropped 30.10 points or 1.24% to 2,393.51, Jakarta Composite plunged 25.14 points or 0.37% to 6,831.44, Straits Times fell 14.35 points or 0.44% to 3,267.95 and Shanghai Composite was down by 3.78 points or 0.12% to 3,263.38.
