Domestic markets trade in red in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks made gap-down opening on Friday tracking over one percent losses on Wall Street overnight as well as weakness in Asian counterparts, on renewed concerns over a Chinese economic slowdown amid troubles in the property market. Traders also cautiously await US Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium later in the day for more clues about the economy and interest-rate outlook. Domestic markets are trading in red in early deals. Market participants refrained from making any significant moves ahead of the India’s gross domestic product (GDP) data to be released in next week. Traders were worried as according to RBI minutes, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Jayanth R Varma said the inflation readings for the next couple of months are likely to remain well above the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) tolerance band of 2-6 per cent. 

However, indices trimmed some losses amid foreign fund inflows. According to the provisional data available on the NSE, foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth net Rs 1,524.87 crore on August 24. Adding some optimism, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the ongoing negotiations between India and the UK on a free trade agreement (FTA) are progressing extremely well and it is expected to conclude at an early date. 

On the sectoral front, telecom stocks are buzzing as Trai said telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 1,173.89 million at the end of June on account of new customer additions led by Reliance Jio. In stock specific developments, Astra Microwave Products rallied on bagging orders worth Rs 158 crore from DRDO, ISRO and DPSU's.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 65063.41, down by 188.93 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 64799.66 and 65079.02. There were 6 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.07%, while Small cap index was up by 0.26%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.08%, Oil & Gas up by 0.26%, Energy up by 0.20%, Industrials up by 0.20% and Auto up by 0.16%, while Healthcare down by 0.53%, IT down by 0.46%, Realty down by 0.44%, Bankex down by 0.43% and FMCG down by 0.38% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finserv up by 1.92%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.80%, Tata Motors up by 0.36%, Reliance Industries up by 0.17% and Asian Paints up by 0.09%. On the flip side, JIO Financial down by 4.98%, Indusind Bank down by 1.22%, Larsen & Toubro down by 0.79%, Sun Pharma down by 0.72% and Axis Bank down by 0.69% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance secretary T V Somanathan has said India will continue to clock the highest growth rate among the top five economies in the world in the foreseeable future and asked Indian diaspora to act as a catalyst and supplement government efforts in making India the biggest opportunity. India is currently the fifth largest economy in the world. The top four are US, China, Japan and Germany. India’s rate of growth by any measurement is much faster than the top four. 

Somanathan said ‘… in terms of the size of opportunity, India is arguably the biggest development opportunity of the future because we are large and we are growing faster than the other large economies’. The Indian economy grew at the rate of 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 and economists peg GDP growth to be in the range of 6-6.5 per cent in the current fiscal (April-March). He said there are three channels through which diaspora can influence - fund flow, trade and knowledge.

He said ‘If we do the right things, and we are doing the right things right now, then you can be a catalyst and a strong accelerator in what India can achieve’, and added that in India’s present stage of development knowledge transfer would be increasingly important. India is the biggest country in terms of population and all challenges are of mega size. India is facing the challenges and we have the ability to tackle them.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 19297.55, down by 89.15 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 19260.75 and 19332.15. There were 13 stocks advancing against 38 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Finserv up by 1.94%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.79%, HDFC Life Insurance up by 0.72%, Adani Ports & SEZ up by 0.57% and BPCL up by 0.53%. On the flip side, JIO Financial down by 4.99%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.63%, Indusind Bank down by 1.28%, Sun Pharma down by 1.16% and Divi's Lab down by 1.10% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 590.3 points or 1.83% to 31,696.91, Taiwan Weighted lost 244.77 points or 1.46% to 16,526.10, Hang Seng declined 187.42 points or 1.03% to 18,024.75, Jakarta Composite plunged 21.31 points or 0.31% to 6,878.08, KOSPI dropped 18.82 points or 0.74% to 2,518.86 and Shanghai Composite weakened 13.93 points or 0.45% to 3,068.31, while Straits Times was up by 1.09 points or 0.03% to 3,181.81.