Friday turned out to be a
remarkable day of trade for Indian equity benchmarks where bulls made come back
on Dalal Street, with Sensex recapturing its crucial 34,100 mark, while Nifty
end just shy of 10,500 mark. The markets' mood remained up-beat throughout the
day and benchmarks fervently gained from strength to strength, as investors
continued hunt for fundamentally strong stocks. Key gauges made a gap-up
opening as traders took some encouragement with Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv
Kumar's statement that India will emerge as a model for the rest of the world
once it completes economic, political and social transitions. He highlighted
India's development process, outlined country's experiences since Independence
and laid out a future vision for achieving a New India by 2022. Some support
also came with private report stating that exports of India-made retail and
lifestyle products clocked a 16% growth in 2017, over the same period last
year. It further noted that in terms of growth, India has surpassed China which
traditionally led from the region, and now stands at number 3. Buying got
accelerated in second half of the trade with market participants getting some
support with CRISIL's report stating that asset quality of microfinance
institutions (MFIs), including small finance banks, has come out of the impact
of demonetisation and stabilised since June 2017. The report added that asset
quality has improved, as evidenced by reducing portfolio delinquencies and
cumulative collection efficiencies have risen to over 99 percent for
disbursements since April 2017. Traders ignored private report that America's
bilateral trade deficit with four major countries, including India, narrowed in
the first three quarters of 2017 as compared to the previous year. According to
the report, India's growth has slowed due to the effects of its structural
economic reforms. Finally, the BSE Sensex surged 322.65 points or 0.95% to
34,142.15, while the CNX Nifty was up by 108.35 points or 1.04% to 10,491.05.
US markets ended the Friday's
session on optimistic note and the major averages ended the session at their
best levels of the day. A continued drop by treasury yields contributed to the
rally on Wall Street, with the ten-year yield pulling back further off the four-year
closing high set on Wednesday. The continued rebound by treasuries came as the
Federal Reserve issued its monetary policy report to Congress, with the central
bank hinting that it still plans three interest rates hikes in 2018. Trading
activity is somewhat remain subdued, however, as a lack of major U.S. economic
data is keeping some traders on the sidelines. A slew of economic data is
scheduled to be released next week, including reports on new home sales,
durable goods orders, consumer confidence, personal income and spending, and
manufacturing activity. Congressional testimony by new Federal Reserve Chairman
Jerome Powell is also likely to attract next Wednesday amid lingering concerns
about the outlook for interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged
347.51 points or 1.39 percent to 25,309.99, S&P 500 gained 43.34 points or
1.60 percent to 2,747.30 and Nasdaq was up by 127.30 points or 1.77 percent to
7,337.39.
Crude oil prices continued to
rise on Friday despite further signs of robust U.S. oil production. The higher
crude prices got support with data showing producers added one additional rig
this week, leaving crude to notch its second consecutive weekly gain as it continues
to claw back ground lost in a selloff earlier this month. The U.S. energy
companies added one oil rig this week, bringing the total count up to 799, the
highest level since April 2015. It was the fifth straight weekly rise in the
rig count. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration said crude-oil
stocks fell by 1.616 million barrels in the week ended February 16. Benchmark
crude oil futures for April delivery surged 78 cents or 1.2 percent at $63.55 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude gained 92 cents or 1.4
percent to settle at $67.31 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.
Indian
rupee ended considerably stronger against dollar on Friday on increased selling
of the American currency by exporters and banks. Traders took encouragement
with Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar's statement that India will emerge as
a model for the rest of the world once it completes economic, political and
social transitions. Investors even overlooked report that America's bilateral
trade deficit with four major countries, including India, narrowed in the first
three quarters of 2017 as compared to the previous year. According to the
report, India's growth has slowed due to the effects of its structural economic
reforms. Besides, abundant capital inflows into domestic equities gave the
uptrend some momentum. However, dollar's strength against major global
currencies overseas restricted the local unit's further up move. On the global
front, euro slipped on Friday as investors trim positions before a big week for
global currency markets from a European politics perspective. Finally, the
rupee ended at 64.73, 30 paise stronger from its previous close of 65.03 on
Thursday.
The FIIs as per Friday's data
were net sellers in equity and debt segments both, in equity segment, the gross
buying was of Rs 7931.24 crore against gross sell of Rs 10194.46 crore, while
in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1125.79 crore with gross
sales of Rs 1711.00 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was
of Rs 0.10 crore against no selling.
The US markets rallied on Friday
as interest rates slipped further from a four-year high, pushing the major
indexes higher for the week. Asian markets were trading mostly in green in
early deals after U.S. stock indexes notched gains of more than a percent in
the last session. Japanese Nikkei edged higher as major exporters gained on a
weaker yen. Indian equity markets ended higher by around a percent after U.S.
government debt yields fell from multiyear highs, helping ease investor worries
over inflation and interest rates. Today, the start of holiday-shortened week
is likely to be on optimistic note following firm global cues. Back on domestic
turf, the investors will remain watchful for Q4 GDP estimate and manufacturing
PMI data to be announced later in the week. Traders will be getting some
support with Union Minister Parshottam Rupala's statement that the Centre was
making concerted efforts to double the income of farmers by 2022 and asked
scientists, and others concerned to tackle the challenges being faced by the
agriculture sector. He opined that scientists, environmental and agricultural
experts must have a global outlook and local approach to combat the challenges
in agricultural and environmental sectors. There will be buzz in infrastructure
related stocks after railway and coal minister Piyush Goyal said that the
government is thinking of 360 degree solutions in terms of setting things in
order for infrastructure sector. He added that the government has moved the
needle from century old railway to connect with the most modern technology but
also look into future. Mining will remain in focus after the government opened
up the coal sector to private players. Stocks related to IT space will also be
buzzing after the Trump administration made the H-1B visa-approval process even
harder for Indian techies.
Support
and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)
Index
|
Previous close
|
Support
|
Resistance
|
NSE Nifty
|
10,491.05
|
10,425.43
|
10,527.88
|
BSE Sensex
|
34,142.15
|
33,926.90
|
34,262.50
|
Nifty Top volumes
Stock
|
Volume
|
Previous close
(Rs)
|
Support (Rs)
|
Resistance (Rs)
|
(in Lacs)
|
Sun Pharma
|
308.45
|
569.65
|
552.02
|
581.27
|
Tata Steel
|
218.66
|
677.75
|
649.03
|
696.43
|
SBI
|
154.82
|
276.05
|
273.30
|
278.00
|
Yes Bank
|
114.00
|
323.45
|
317.93
|
327.48
|
Vedanta
|
112.71
|
337.90
|
329.78
|
343.38
|
L&T's construction arm -- L&T Construction -- has bagged orders worth Rs 1,266 crore across various business segments.
HCL Technologies will invest about Rs 160 crore as part of its CSR activity in the field of education, health and power.
Bharti Airtel has added 15.02 lakh users in January 2018.
Mahindra & Mahindra has signed an agreement for investing in Resfeber Labs on February 23, 2018.