Choppiness continues on Dalal Street on F&O expiry day

Indian equity benchmarks continue to trade choppy on F&O expiry day as investors remain concerned about the state of the global economy. Deadlock in the US debt ceiling discussion too keeping traders on the edge. The indices were trading slightly below neutral lines. Losses in metal and banking shares led the headline indices lower, while gains in FMCG and telecommunication stocks supported the indices in limiting the downside. Weakness in Asian counters too dampened sentiments a little as lingering concerns about US lawmakers' ability to reach an agreement on increasing the U.S. debt ceiling continued. Back home, market participants awaiting more of financial results from India Inc. for domestic cues, with SAIL, Indian Energy Exchange, Zee Entertainment and Page Industries likely to release their earnings later in the day.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 61677.52, down by 96.26 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 61599.27 and 61827.51. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.18%, while Small cap index was up by 0.34%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.71%, FMCG up by 0.64%, Realty up by 0.61%, Capital Goods up by 0.33% and Industrials up by 0.23%, while Metal down by 0.56%, Bankex down by 0.32%, Auto down by 0.30%, Oil & Gas down by 0.22% and Energy down by 0.21% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 2.41%, ITC up by 1.51%, Nestle up by 0.72%, Power Grid up by 0.59% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.57%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.84%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.30%, Indusind Bank down by 1.10%, HDFC down by 0.87% and Sun Pharma down by 0.86% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest monthly bulletin has said that gross foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to India, for the first time in a decade, declined on an annual basis in 2022-23 to $71 billion mainly due to a slowdown in the global economy. The annual decline works out to be 16.3 per cent in 2022-23 compared to inflows in 2021-22. The gross FDI inflows in 2021-22 were $81.97 billion, up 10 per cent over fiscal 2019-20. 

The previous year-on-year contraction in FDI was in 2012-13 when the inflows declined by 26 per cent to $34.298 billion. It stated net FDI too declined by nearly 27 per cent to $28 billion in 2022-23 as compared with $38.6 billion a year ago, mainly due to moderation in gross foreign direct investment inflows and an increase in repatriation.

It mentioned manufacturing, computer services and communication services recorded the highest decline in FDI inflows compared with the preceding year. The major contributors towards the fall in inflows during the same period were the US, Switzerland, and Mauritius. The bulletin quoted ‘fDi Intelligence’, to say India was the second largest recipient of FDI ($26.2 billion) in the semiconductor industry for the year 2022, second only to the US ($33.8 billion).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18252.15, down by 33.25 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 18236.50 and 18303.80. There were 17 stocks advancing against 33 stocks declining on the index.
The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 2.41%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.97%, Britannia Industries up by 1.53%, ITC up by 1.51% and Tata Consumer Product up by 1.42%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 2.00%, Tata Motors down by 1.90%, Hindalco down by 1.56%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.27% and Indusind Bank down by 1.08% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Hang Seng declined 377.93 points or 2.02% to 18,738.00, Jakarta Composite plunged 26.08 points or 0.39% to 6,719.72, KOSPI dropped 10.68 points or 0.42% to 2,556.77, Shanghai Composite weakened 10.01 points or 0.31% to 3,194.74 and Straits Times was down by 6.1 points or 0.19% to 3,208.11. On the other hand, Taiwan Weighted added 127.6 points or 0.78% to 16,286.92 and Nikkei 225 was up by 97.04 points or 0.32% to 30,779.72.