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NSE Intra-day chart (18 March 2019)
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Market Commentary 19 March 2019
Markets to make a cautious start amid mixed global cues

 

Indian equity barometers ended Monday's trading session in green territory and extended their winning streak for sixth straight session, with Sensex and Nifty regaining their crucial psychological levels of 38,000 and 11,450, respectively. The markets made a cheerful start of the day, as India's merchandise exports continued their growth momentum for fifth straight month. Exports grew by 2.44% in the month of February 2019, over the same month of last year, on account of growth in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, handloom, engineering goods and chemicals. Traders were positive, amid reports that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came out with guidelines for financial instruments, with an aim to prevent misuse of price-sensitive information by participants in markets. The guidelines have become effective from March 16, 2019. Some support also came with a report that overseas investors poured in more than Rs 20,400 crore in the domestic capital market in the first half of March, mainly driven by positive global cues. However, in noon deals, key indices pared their gains to trade lackluster, impacted by a private report stating that India will underperform this year compared to other emerging markets as valuations continue to be a concern for the country. But, last-hour buying along with firm global cues lifted the equity indices to settle higher. The market participants took encouragement with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement that infrastructure development and clearing backlog of defence procurement will be the government's priorities for the future. He also noted that rural India development and improvement of healthcare and education would be the other priority areas. Traders took a note of report that industry body Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) released a charter of demands to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 70.75 points or 0.19% to 38,095.07, while the CNX Nifty was up by 35.35 points or 0.31% to 11,462.20.

 

The US markets ended higher, with gains of over quarter a percent, on Monday on optimism about a US-China trade deal after China's state-owned Xinhua news agency reporting the US and China have made further concrete progress on the text of a final agreement. Further, reports on the merger-and-acquisition front added to the positive sentiment, as Deutsche Bank (DB) and rival German bank Commerzbank confirmed they are in merger talks. However, buying interest was somewhat subdued as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy Meeting to begin Tuesday. The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, although traders are likely to keep a close eye on the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates. The central bank's economic projections and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's subsequent press conference are also likely to be in focus. On the economic front, homebuilder confidence in the US has held steady in the month of March, according to a report released by the National Association of Home Builders. The report said the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index came in at 62 in March, unchanged from February. NAHB Chairman Greg Ugalde said builders report the market is stabilizing following the slowdown at the end of 2018 and they anticipate a solid spring home buying season. The unchanged reading by the homebuilder confidence index reflected a mixed performance by the three index components. While the component charting sales expectations in the next six months rose three points to 71 and the component gauging current sales conditions increased two points to 68, the component measuring traffic of prospective buyers fell four points to 44. Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 65.23 points or 0.25 percent to 25914.10, Nasdaq gained 25.95 points or 0.34 percent to 7714.48 and S&P 500 was up by 10.46 points or 0.37 percent to 2832.94.

 

Crude oil futures ended higher on Monday as Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies looked set to continue their crude production cuts until June. The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), a production policy monitoring group that includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, said that overall conformity with the production cut agreement among OPEC and some nonmember allies that began at the start of the year rose to almost 90% in February, up from 83% in January.  The JMMC also recommended that OPEC forgo its full ministerial meeting in April and instead hold its next meeting on June 25 to make a decision on the production target for the second half of the year. The current production pact expires at the end of June. Benchmark crude oil futures for April rose 57 cents or 1 percent to settle at $59.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. May Brent crude gained 38 cents or 0.6 percent to settle at $67.54 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

 

Extending gaining streak for sixth straight session, Indian rupee appreciated against dollar on Monday, on the back of dollar sales by investors. Investors sentiment was supported with the trade ministry's statement that India's trade deficit narrowed to $9.60 billion in February, dragged down by a fall in gold and oil imports, as compared to $14.73 billion in January. The data showed that in February, merchandise exports rose 2.44 percent from a year earlier to $26.67 billion, while imports were down 5.41 percent to $36.26 billion. Besides, gold imports in February fell 10.81 percent year-on-year to $2.58 billion, compared to $2.90 billion during the same month a year ago. Some support also came with report that overseas investors poured in more than Rs 20,400 crore in the domestic capital market in the first half of March, mainly driven by positive global cues. Besides, weakness of dollar in the overseas market coupled with strong gains in the local equity markets helped the domestic currency rebound. Finally, the rupee ended at 68.53, 57 paise stronger from its previous close of 69.10 on Friday.

 

The FIIs as per Monday's data were net buyers in equity and debt segments both. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 15322.65 crore against gross selling of Rs 11860.26 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 3345.49 crore with gross sales of Rs 421.07 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 0.39 crore against gross selling of Rs 0.55 crore.

 

The US markets settled higher on Monday, ahead of a meeting of Federal Reserve policy makers to begin on March 19, while losses for aircraft maker Boeing dragged capped the further gains. Asian markets are trading mostly lower on Tuesday, ahead of a closely watched meeting by the US Federal Reserve set to kick off later in the day. Indian equity benchmarks ended higher for the sixth straight session on Monday, with modest gains, amid sustained FII inflows coupled with firm global cues. Today, the markets are likely to make a cautious start amid mixed cues from global market. The US Fed will begin its meeting on interest rates later in the day, which ends with a news conference on March 20. On the domestic front, investors will be eyeing the all-powerful Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council's 34th meeting to be held later in the day, it is expected to take up various issues including the implementation of lower GST rates for the real estate sector. In the previous meeting, the Council slashed tax rates for under-construction flats to 5% and affordable homes to 1%, effective April 1. Traders may take some encouragement with a report that the net direct tax collection figure has crossed the Rs 10 lakh crore mark as on March 16, helped by the fourth and final installment of tax payment. The entire advance tax data from across the country has not come yet. The net direct tax collection during April-January of this fiscal stood at Rs 7.89 lakh crore as against Rs 12 lakh crore targeted for the entire fiscal of 2018-19. Investors may take note of Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant's statement that India cannot achieve 9-10% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth without revolution in the farm sector. He said there is a need to boost investment in the agriculture sector as well as to introduce new technology and market reforms. Meanwhile, the government has constituted an inter-ministerial panel for monitoring, sanctioning and implementation of projects under the Rs 10,000-crore FAME-II programme, aimed at incentivising clean mobility. Besides, the country's first real estate investment trust (REIT) offering has been subscribed 20% on the first day of bidding on March 18. There will be some buzz in information technology (IT) sector stocks with ICRA's report that the IT services sector is estimated to clock a flat growth of up to 9% in the fiscal year 2019-20. It also said that there will be higher consolidation in the industry, especially among the small and mid-size players, owing to margin pressures in the next decade. There will be some reaction in sugar sector stocks with the Indian Sugar Mills Association's (ISMA) statement that India's sugar production rose by 6% to 273.47 lakh tonne till March 15, 2019. On the corresponding date last year, 258.20 lakh tons had been produced.

 

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

 

Index

Previous close

Support

Resistance

NSE Nifty

11,462.20

11,406.42

11,524.07

BSE Sensex

38,095.07

37,908.25

38,325.74

 

Nifty Top volumes

 

Stock

Volume

Previous close (Rs)

Support  (Rs)

Resistance (Rs)

(in Lacs)

IOC

414.82

162.80

158.37

166.72

Yes Bank

248.26

245.95

242.32

249.07

SBI

237.83

298.95

295.43

301.68

ICICI Bank

212.21

398.05

394.40

400.80

NTPC

160.75

158.75

156.07

161.12

 

  • IndusInd Bank has inaugurated branch in Sadar Bazar area of Delhi making its 54th branch to become operational in the city. 
  • Wipro has launched Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions on Amazon Web Services. 
  • Lupin's subsidiary -- Novel Laboratories' Somerset facility has been cautioned by the USFDA that it may be subject to regulatory or administrative action. 
  • Maruti Suzuki India has cut production by over 8% in February on account of subdued demand.
News Analysis