Markets magnify opening losses amid global turmoil

Indian equity benchmarks extended their previous session’s bearish trend with negative start on Thursday tracking weakness in other Asian counterpart and overnight losses on wall street following a fresh sell-off in the banking sector amid concerns about the debt woes of Swiss Lender Credit Suisse, and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. This raised concerns the global economy could see a significant slowdown in the near to medium term. Soon, markets added losses and extended their southward journey in early deals amid weekly F&O expiry. Sensex and Nifty breached their crucial 57,300 and 16,900 levels as selling got intensified in counters such as Metal, Industrials and Capital Goods. Continued foreign fund outflows dented domestic sentiments. The National Stock Exchange's provisional data showed foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,271.25 crore on March 15.

Traders were concerned as the data released by the commerce ministry showed that India's exports dipped in February for the third consecutive month by 8.8 per cent to $33.88 billion against $37.15 billion in the same month last year. Imports also declined by 8.21 per cent to $51.31 billion as against $55.9 billion recorded in the corresponding month last year. The country's trade deficit in February stood at $17.43 billion. On the sectoral front, oil marketing company’s stocks were buzzing after oil prices slumped nearly 5 percent to their lowest level in more than a year overnight on recession fears. In stock specific development, Shriram Finance traded higher on reports it is looking to sell 15 percent stake in its housing finance subsidiary Shriram Housing Finance.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 57203.60, down by 352.30 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 57158.69 and 57611.98. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 1.28%, while Small cap index was down by 1.66%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 0.54%, FMCG up by 0.10%, while Metal down by 3.70%, Industrials down by 1.64%, Capital Goods down by 1.53%, Telecom down by 1.20%, Realty down by 1.15% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan Company up by 2.26%, Nestle up by 1.60%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.14%, Power Grid up by 0.55% and Sun Pharma up by 0.43%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 4.28%, Indusind Bank down by 3.54%, ICICI Bank down by 1.36%, Reliance Industries down by 1.34% and Larsen & Toubro down by 1.24% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with a view to promoting the country's outbound shipments of goods and services, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal has said that the government is likely to release the new five-year foreign trade policy (FTP) by the end of this month. The current foreign trade policy (2015-20) is in force till March 31, 2022.

Barthwal said that the ministry has looked at various aspects of that FTP as the policy is basically the collection of various incentive schemes. They are also adding the aspect of vision into that as the ministry is targeting to take the goods and services exports to $2 trillion by 2030.

He added ‘'So, within that framework, we have worked out our FTP and we are expecting that it would be released by the end of this month’. FTP provides guidelines for enhancing exports to push economic growth and create jobs. It was first extended on March 31, 2020, for one year due to the coronavirus outbreak and the lockdown.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16867.20, down by 104.95 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 16850.90 and 16995.40. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 3.72%, Titan Company up by 2.12%, Nestle up by 1.72%, Britannia Industries up by 1.41% and Hindustan Unilever up by 1.24%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 4.42%, Tata Steel down by 4.10%, JSW Steel down by 3.88%, Indusind Bank down by 3.39% and ONGC down by 2.13% were the top losers.

All Asian markets are trading lower; Hang Seng declined 297.78 points or 1.52% to 19,242.09, Nikkei 225 slipped 280.64 points or 1.03% to 26,948.84, Taiwan Weighted lost 162.24 points or 1.05% to 15,225.35, Jakarta Composite dropped 49.49 points or 0.75% to 6,578.65, Straits Times fell 20.84 points or 0.66% to 3,152.08, Shanghai Composite weakened 16.14 points or 0.5% to 3,247.17 and KOSPI was down by 5.89 points or 0.25% to 2,373.83.