Key gauges continue to trade lower in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade lower in morning deals, tracking a weak trend in the global markets, incessant foreign fund outflows and concerns over US tariffs. Exchange data showed Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 4,788.29 crore on Monday. Traders remained cautious as the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s (DPIIT) data showed that foreign direct investment (FDI) in India dipped by 5.6 per cent year-on-year to $10.9 billion in October-December quarter of this fiscal (2024-25), as compared to FDI inflows of $11.55 billion during October-December 2023-24 due to global economic uncertainties. Sector-wise, power stocks remained in limelight as the government data showed India's power consumption grew marginally to 131.54 billion units (BU) in February, higher than 127.34 BU in the year-ago period.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading lower after U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada would come into effect on Tuesday and that he plans 20 percent tariffs on Chinese imports over fentanyl issues. Further, Trump said reciprocal tariffs would take effect on April 2 on countries that impose duties on U.S. products, stoking fears of a global trade war.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 72896.09, down by 189.85 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 72633.54 and 73008.41. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.17%, while Small cap index was up by 1.45%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Industrials up by 1.25%, PSU up by 1.24%, Capital Goods up by 1.10%, Basic Materials up by 0.59% and Power up by 0.39%, while TECK down by 0.87%, IT down by 0.75%, FMCG down by 0.68%, Auto down by 0.48% and Telecom down by 0.39% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 2.93%, Zomato up by 1.62%, Indusind Bank up by 1.25%, Power Grid Corporation up by 1.09% and Tata Steel up by 1.01%. On the flip side, Nestle down by 2.63%, Titan Company down by 1.61%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.38%, Infosys down by 1.35% and Asian Paints down by 1.33% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the global rating agency - Fitch Ratings in its commentary has said that Indian banks have exhibited robust performance in the first nine months of the current financial year with the sector's impaired loan ratio close to the trough, and added that there is potential for improvement in impaired loan ratio for FY26.

Fitch also said that the improvements in key performance metrics of Indian banks in the past few years will provide strong support for their Viability Ratings (VRs). The Return on Assets (ROA) of Indian banking sector has improved by about 10bp to 1.4 per cent in 9MFY25 from FY24.

The rating agency said that Indian banks' risk appetites have been more calibrated since 2018, with efforts to diversify loans and improve the quality of corporate exposures contributing to lower bad loan formation. Further, it added that lower legacy bad loans drove improvement in banks' gross impaired loan ratios and earningsd.

However, agency noted that, these risk enhancements have yet to be fully tested, and banks have tended to vary risk appetite through cycles, such as growth in unsecured personal loans in recent years until regulatory measures discouraged this behaviour.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22066.50, down by 52.80 points or 0.24% after trading in a range of 21964.60 and 22091.05. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI up by 2.93%, Bharat Electronics up by 2.49%, Power Grid Corporation up by 1.56%, Tata Steel up by 1.26% and Indusind Bank up by 1.15%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 2.83%, Nestle down by 2.59%, Infosys down by 1.56%, Titan Co down by 1.54% and HCL Tech. down by 1.43% were the top losers. 

All Asian markets are trading lower; Nikkei 225 slipped 749.69 points or 2.02% to 37,035.78, Taiwan Weighted lost 105.71 points or 0.47% to 22,650.54, Hang Seng declined 105.03 points or 0.46% to 22,901.24, KOSPI dropped 2.50 points or 0.1% to 2,530.28, Straits Times fell 15.31 points or 0.39% to 3,893.61, Jakarta Composite plunged 79.49 points or 1.23% to 6,440.17 and Shanghai Composite weakened 0.26 points or 0.01% to 3,316.67.