Indian equities wipe out opening gains; trade flat with negative bias

Indian equity benchmarks started Tuesday’s trading session with marginal gains following overnight gains on Wall Street. Soon, markets wipeout their initial gains and slipped below neutral lines in early deals and are trading flat with negative bias tracking weakness in Asian counterparts as fears of rising U.S. interest rates largely offset optimism over stronger-than-expected Chinese economic growth. Foreign fund outflows also impacted the sentiments. National Stock Exchange's provisional data showed foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 533.20 crore on April 17. Investors on Dalal Street are await more of corporate earnings reports from India Inc for cues as the Q4 results season gathers steam. However, broader indices are outperforming larger peers with gains of around 0.25% each.

On the sectoral front, road logistics sector stocks were in focus as ICRA said the Indian road logistics industry is expected to clock a high single-digit growth this fiscal on an elevated base of the previous year. In stock specific development, Justdial shares zoomed after the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 83.6 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, rising 11 per cent as compared with the previous quarter.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 59840.56, down by 70.19 points or 0.12% after trading in a range of 59840.56 and 60113.47. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.26%, while Small cap index was up by 0.24%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.66%, Auto up by 0.32%, Bankex up by 0.26%, PSU up by 0.17%, Oil & Gas up by 0.15%, while Telecom down by 0.40%, Consumer Durables down by 0.33%, TECK down by 0.33%, IT down by 0.27%, FMCG down by 0.13% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 1.40%, HCL Technologies up by 0.89%, Indusind Bank up by 0.63%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.58% and Axis Bank up by 0.39%. On the flip side, Power Grid down by 0.76%, TCS down by 0.64%, Reliance Industries down by 0.60%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.60% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.51% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Space Jitendra Singh has said that India is one of the very few countries that have built end-to-end capability in space technologies and added that the country is an emerging space economy. He said ‘India is one of the very few countries that have built end-to-end capability in space. Over the years, space technology has penetrated all walks of life. As a result, there is a huge demand for space-based services which have huge commercial potential’.

He said the government has decided to open up the space sector for the private sector and help companies to enhance their participation in end-to-end space activities with the hand-holding of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The increased private industry participation will eventually result in an increased contribution of India in the global space economy.

G20 sherpa of India Amitabh Kant said the G20 countries should collaborate on three key areas - manufacturing in space, mining in space and energy in space. He also insisted that policies that create an enabling environment for development and trade in the new space era should be formulated by G20 to allow further collaboration among the member countries.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17699.35, down by 7.50 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 17692.35 and 17766.60. There were 27 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 1.38%, Eicher Motors up by 1.23%, HCL Technologies up by 0.94%, Adani Enterprises up by 0.80% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.67%. On the flip side, Apollo Hospital down by 1.82%, Power Grid down by 0.82%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.78%, TCS down by 0.66% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.65% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Hang Seng declined 155.81 points or 0.76% to 20,626.64, Taiwan Weighted lost 76.04 points or 0.48% to 15,887.51, Straits Times fell 16.1 points or 0.49% to 3,303.16, KOSPI dropped 7.85 points or 0.3% to 2,568.06 and Shanghai Composite was down by 0.76 points or 0.02% to 3,384.85. on the other hand, Nikkei 225 surged 155.81 points or 0.55% to 28,670.59 and Jakarta Composite gained 38.92 points or 0.57% to 6,826.50.