Indian equity benchmarks witnessed a bloodbath on Monday's trading session, by falling over four percent, tracking weak cues from overseas as investors braced for a prolonged period of uncertainty as coronavirus-induced lockdowns tightened across the world and in India. Key indices opened in red and stayed in the negative terrain for whole trading session, as traders remain concerned with the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) statement that the world is in the face of a devastating impact due to the coronavirus pandemic and has clearly entered a recession, but projected a recovery next year. Some cautiousness also came in as the country's foreign exchange reserves fell by a whopping $11.98 billion to $469.909 billion in the week to March 20 as the Reserve Bank continued to supply dollars into the market to stem fall in the rupee. Key indices continued their free fall during the final hour of trade, as Fitch Solutions slashed its estimate for India's GDP growth in the fiscal starting April 1 to 4.6 per cent due to weaker private consumption and contraction in investment amid coronavirus outbreak, costing economies around the globe. Anxiety persisted over the street, even after the government constituted 11 empowered groups to suggest measures to ramp up healthcare, put the economy back on track and reduce misery of people as quickly as possible post the 21-day lockdown imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Traders even overlooked the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its post-Covid-19-outbreak stating that even as the Indian economy is likely to be battered by the Coronavirus pandemic this year, it is still likely to be better off than all other G20 countries. Finally, the BSE Sensex lost 1375.27 points or 4.61% to 28,440.32, while the CNX Nifty was down by 379.15 points or 4.38% to 8,281.10.

The US markets ended higher with gains of over three percent on Monday, largely offsetting the pullback seen in last session, after President Donald Trump extended national social distancing guidelines until at least April 30. Trump had previously hoped to reopen the country by Easter Sunday, on April 12, but said he decided to extend the guidelines in an effort to keep the death toll from the coronavirus below 100,000. The announcement by Trump comes as data from Johns Hopkins University shows more than 153,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the US and more than 2,800 deaths. Trump said that he expects the US to be well on our way to recovery by June 1. On the economic data front, pointing to a healthy housing market before the coronavirus-induced shutdown, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released a report showing an unexpected jump in pending home sales in the month of February. NAR said its pending home sales index surged up by 2.4 percent to 111.5 in February after spiking by 5.3 percent to an upwardly revised 108.9 in January. The continued increase surprised market participants, who had expected pending home sales to pull back by 1.0 percent. A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale. 

Crude oil futures ended sharply lower on Monday, pushing the front month contracts to their lowest close in more than 18 years. Rising concerns about the outlook for energy demand due to businesses across the globe shutting down to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus took a toll of oil prices. Additionally, with large producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia not appearing keen on resorting to any meaningful output reductions, there is a possibility of a glut in the oil market. For the month to date, WTI and Brent crude are both off by about 55%, based on the front month contracts. Crude oil futures for May fell $1.42 or 6.6 percent to settle at $20.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. May Brent crude fell $2.17 or 8.7 percent to settle at $22.76 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Indian rupee depreciated sharply against the US dollar on Monday, amid buying in the American currency by banks and importers. Traders remain concerned as Fitch Solutions slashed its estimate for India's GDP growth in the fiscal starting April 1 to 4.6 per cent due to weaker private consumption and contraction in investment amid coronavirus outbreak, costing economies around the globe. A broadly stronger US dollar along with a weak trend in domestic equity markets also weighed on investors' sentiment. On the global front, dollar snapped a week of declines and the safe-haven yen found support on Monday, as coronavirus lockdowns tightened across the world and investors braced for a prolonged period of uncertainty. The last traded price of rupee was 75.59, 70 paise weaker from its previous close of 74.89 on Friday.

The FIIs as per Monday's data were net buyers in equity segment, while they were net sellers in debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 9616.35 crore against gross selling of Rs 8586.97 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 407.33 crore with gross sales of Rs 1979.38 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 6.00 crore against gross selling of Rs 6.95 crore.

The US markets ended higher on Monday after President Donald Trump abandoned the idea of getting the economy back up and running by Easter. Asian markets are trading in green on Tuesday as factory data from China held out the hope of a rebound in activity even as other countries across the globe all but shut down. Indian markets ended deeply in red on Monday as the number of coronavirus infections in the country showed no signs of slowing in spite of a nationwide lockdown. Today, the start of last trading session of fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20) is likely to be gap-up following rebound in the global markets. Some support will come with report that the government has put off implementation of the uniform stamp duty on transfer of shares, debentures, futures, options, currency and other capital market instruments to July 1, 2020. Also, some support will come as in line with the Budget announcement, the Reserve Bank opened certain specified categories of government securities (g-secs) for non-resident investors as part of an initiative to deepen the bond market. Traders may take note of report that the government has budgeted a total of Rs 42,000 crore towards disaster relief in the FY21 budget. From April onwards, these budget lines will be available to states to fight against COVID-19 among other calamities. Though, there may be some concern amid fast spreading coronavirus. India's cumulative coronavirus infections have reached 1,251, registering the highest single-day increase of 227 cases on March 30, while the death toll rose to 32. Also, there may be some caution as Fitch Solutions slashed its estimate for India's GDP growth in the fiscal starting April 1 (FY21) to 4.6% due to weaker private consumption and contraction in investment amid coronavirus outbreak, costing economies around the globe. Traders will be cautious as domestic credit rating agency India Ratings (Ind-Ra) cut its FY21 growth forecast to 3.6% amid coronavirus-related worries. It has assumed that a full or partial lockdown will continue till end of April and economic activities will be gradually restored only after May. Besides, the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak has been felt in the collection of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for February, with the government collecting Rs 98,000 crore so far (till March 30, 2020). Meanwhile, SEBI has decided to provide temporary relaxations in compliances for Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs). There will be some buzz in the e-commerce stocks with report that e-commerce companies are resuming their services. But, several ecommerce companies are struggling to get enough of curfew passes, besides being short of delivery personnel. Auto stocks will be in focus with a private report that auto sales for March could see a 50% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) decline in volumes, given the lockdown and decline in footfall during the second half of the month. 

Support and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)

Nifty Top volumes

• NTPC has completed acquisition of entire equity stake of Government of India in North Eastern Electric Power Corporation and THDC India. 
• State Bank of India has raised $100 million green bonds, the first such bond by any state-owned bank in this fiscal. 
• Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has received a communication from the USFDA indicating that the Halol facility has been classified as Official Action Indicated. 
• Maruti Suzuki India has examined its ability to assist in the production of ventilators, masks and other protective equipment to support India's preparation against COVID-19.