Sensex, Nifty trade lower with cut of over half a percent in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks made pessimistic start on Friday following overnight sell-off on Wall Street as well as weakness in Asian counterparts amid a hotter than expected increase in US wholesale inflation. The US producer price index rose 0.6 per cent against expectations of a 0.3 per cent rise, sending the US-10-year treasury yield higher by 10 bps to 4.29 per cent. Sensex and Nifty are trading lower with cut of over half a percent each in early deals due to selling in oil & gas and energy stocks. Foreign fund outflows also dented sentiments. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 1,356.29 crore on March 14, provisional data from the NSE showed. Investors are looking ahead to the outcome of the mutual fund stress test. There are expectations that the pain to stay in the near term due to concerns surrounding valuations in mid and smallcap segments.

On the sectoral front, oil marketing companies like BPCL, HPCL and Indian Oil are in focus as the Centre has reduced prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre, effective from March 15. The move comes at a time when Brent crude oil is hovering above $85 per barrel. In stock specific development, Paytm hit the 5 per cent upper circuit after NPCI allowed it to operate as a third party application provider on UPI via SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and YES Bank.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 72683.27, down by 414.01 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 72646.94 and 72998.07. 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 1.07%, while Small cap index was down by 0.43%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas down by 2.38%, Energy down by 1.80%, PSU down by 1.80%, Metal down by 1.45% and Capital Goods down by 1.37%, while there were no gainers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finance up by 0.95%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.66%, Power Grid up by 0.54%, Bajaj Finserv up by 0.40% and Ultratech Cement up by 0.22%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 2.01%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.81%, NTPC down by 1.68%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.62% and Infosys down by 1.57% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant has said that the Indian startup movement must be driven by Indian financing and cannot depend on foreign funding. He said the nation needs to create a fund of funds to support young deep tech startups. He said all upcoming startups have to be driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI). He added startups should focus on corporate governance for growth, otherwise, they will land up in a debacle.

Kant, who was the former NITI Aayog CEO, said ‘In the quest for great innovation and disruption, startups lose out on corporate governance. The key to India's success of becoming the number one nation of startups is its ability to do good corporate governance and to ensure that Indian insurance companies, pension funds, and others, should all invest in our startup movement’. He further said that India cannot grow on the back of foreign money coming in all the time.

He also said ‘India's startup movement must be driven by India's financing’. He said ‘We must be very clear about being the number one startup nation in the world. There is no reason that anything should hold us back because we have created a digital movement that is more powerful than anything else in the world’. He noted that women are outperforming men in every walk of life, and if India wants to be a $35 trillion economy by 2047, it cannot do so without women’s participation.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 21998.30, down by 148.35 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 21993.45 and 22120.90. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were UPL up by 1.23%, Bajaj Finance up by 0.73%, Power Grid up by 0.56%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.44% and Bajaj Finserv up by 0.33%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 4.96%, Coal India down by 3.14%, Axis Bank down by 2.02%, ONGC down by 1.90% and NTPC down by 1.79% were the top losers.

All Asian markets are trading lower; Hang Seng declined 354.4 points or 2.13% to 16,607.26, Taiwan Weighted lost 145.45 points or 0.73% to 19,792.47, Nikkei 225 slipped 81.18 points or 0.21% to 38,726.20, Jakarta Composite weakened 62.46 points or 0.85% to 7,370.86, KOSPI dropped 37.87 points or 1.41% to 2,680.89, Straits Times fell 8.57 points or 0.27% to 3,177.83 and Shanghai Composite was down by 5.39 points or 0.18% to 3,032.84.