Sensex, Nifty trade lower in early deals amid selling at IT, Teck counters

Indian equity benchmarks made cautious start on Friday amid mixed global cues. Investors avoided taking long positions ahead of extended weekend holiday as markets will remain close on Monday on account of Holi. Sensex and Nifty are trading lower with cut of over 0.30% each in early deals due to selling in IT and Teck stocks. Foreign fund outflows also dampened sentiments in the markets. Provisional data from the NSE showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 1,826.97 crore on March 21. Some cautiousness came in with a private report that Private equity and venture capital investments declined to $2.2 billion in February, 39 per cent down when compared with the year-ago period's $3.7 billion. However, downside remained limited as some support came in after Amitabh Kant, former chief executive officer of NITI Aayog and India’s G20 Sherpa said India must aim to accelerate its pace of growth to 9-10 per cent over a three-decade period. Kant emphasised India's potential to outpace Japan and Germany, projecting it to become the world's third-largest economy by 2027. 

On the global front, most of the Asian markets are trading lower, despite the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, as some markets retreated from recent highs with traders eager to book some profits. Some traders also remain worried recent hotter-than-expected US inflation data could lead Fed officials to reconsider lowering rates. Back home, IT stocks are trading under pressure amid report that Accenture has lowered its revenue forecast for fiscal year 2024 citing global uncertainty and weak client spending on consulting services. It sees full-year revenue growth to be between 1-3 per cent, down from the earlier projection of 2-5 per cent. In stock specific development, Sarda Energy zoomed as its JV wins licence for iron ore block.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 72379.56, down by 261.63 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 72172.09 and 72491.97. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.03%, while Small cap index was up by 0.52%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.48%, Telecom up by 0.76%, Oil & Gas up by 0.31%, Healthcare up by 0.31% and Basic Materials up by 0.28%, while IT down by 2.57%, TECK down by 2.08%, Auto down by 0.31%, Metal down by 0.14% and Power down by 0.13% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.03%, ITC up by 0.72%, ICICI Bank up by 0.63%, SBI up by 0.40% and Titan Company up by 0.35%. On the flip side, HCL Technologies down by 4.57%, Wipro down by 3.37%, Infosys down by 2.68%, Tech Mahindra down by 2.44% and TCS down by 2.37% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing confidence over India’s growth story, India's G20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant has said that India will surpass Japan and Germany to emerge as the third-largest economy and also the third-largest stock market in the world in the next five years. He said India has been growing in the last three quarters at 8.3 per cent plus and has emerged as a very 'resilient powerhouse' during this period. Quoting the IMF, Kant said India will be contributing close to 20 per cent of the world's economic expansion in the next decade and South is the engine of India's growth story for the country to be a $35 trillion economy by 2047.

He stressed India needs to grow on the back of manufacturing, smart urbanisation, and agriculture. He said ‘India needs to improve learning outcomes and skills to ensure India provides 30 per cent of the skilled manpower globally by 2047, focus on creating a large number of large companies in India to create an ecosystem for MSMEs and SMEs to thrive and increase its R&D spending from 0.7 per cent to at least 2.5-3 per cent of GDP’.

He also said ‘For India to have accelerated the pace of growth that we are currently witnessing, we brought in a goods and services tax that is paying us rich dividends. Secondly, we brought in the insolvency and bankruptcy code, thirdly, the Real Estate Regulation Act has led to discipline in the real estate sector of India’. Fourthly, he said, the ease of doing business at the central level has ensured that 1500 laws have been eliminated, which is big. He added ‘We also started the Startup India movement. From a mere 150 startups, today we have 125,000 startups, plus 115 unicorns.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 21946.25, down by 65.70 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 21883.30 and 21977.80. There were 22 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 1.63%, Apollo Hospital up by 1.40%, Cipla up by 1.09%, Sun Pharma up by 0.87% and ITC up by 0.85%. On the flip side, HCL Technologies down by 4.42%, LTIMindtree down by 3.38%, Wipro down by 3.37%, Infosys down by 2.64% and Tech Mahindra down by 2.41% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Hang Seng declined 512.54 points or 3.13% to 16,350.56, Taiwan Weighted lost 52.53 points or 0.26% to 20,146.56, Shanghai Composite weakened 43.34 points or 1.43% to 3,033.77, KOSPI dropped 10.28 points or 0.37% to 2,744.58, Straits Times fell 9.46 points or 0.29% to 3,210.91 and Jakarta Composite was down by 0.03 points or 0% to 7,338.32, while Nikkei 225 rose 91.16 points or 0.22% to 40,906.82.