Indian equity benchmarks paused
the four days gaining rally on Thursday, with Sensex and Nifty closing near
their day's low points. The start of day was positive, buoyed by the Securities
and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) data report stating that the share of
foreign portfolio investments (FPI) in domestic capital markets through
participatory notes (P-notes) jumped to Rs 78,110 crore at the end of March
from Rs 73,428 crore at the end of February. Of the total, P-notes holdings in
equities at March-end were at Rs 56,288 crore, while in debts and derivatives
were at Rs 20,999 crore and Rs 119 crore respectively. In early deals, traders
also got comfort with the rating agency ICRA's latest report showing that the
issuance of government-fully serviced bonds (GoI-FSBs) has significantly shot
up to Rs 64,192 crore during the financial year 2019 as compared to Rs 15,095
crore during FY18. The agency also noted that such borrowings are estimated to have
accounted for 0.34 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for FY19, as against
0.09 percent of GDP for FY18. However, key indices soon slipped in red terrain
to trade lower for the rest of the session, amid reports that unemployment rate
in India has doubled in eight years to 2018 as 50 lakh lost jobs in last two
years beginning with demonetisation in November 2016. Further, adding more
worries among investors, a private report stated that the first quarter of 2019
recorded 110 merger and acquisition deals worth $ 12.5 billion (about Rs 86,500
crore), a 33 per cent fall in value terms as against the year-ago period, due
to factors such as global economic conditions and uncertainty around Brexit.
Trading sentiments also got hit with former Reserve Bank of India Governor
Raghuram Rajan's statement that protectionism does not really help preserve
jobs and offers little defence against the job-destroying effects of automation
and Artificial Intelligence, asserting that industrial and developing nations
cannot afford to ignore the democratic reaction from those left behind by
globalisation and technological change. Finally, the BSE Sensex slipped 135.36
points or 0.34% to 39,140.28, while the CNX Nifty was down by 34.35 points or
0.29% to 11,752.80.
The US markets ended Thursday's
choppy trading session higher as investors continued to analyze the flow of
corporate earnings and a series of conflicting economic reports, but sentiment
was buoyed by strong market debuts from Pinterest Inc. and Zoom Video Communications
Inc. Traders remained reluctant to make significant moves going into the long
Easter weekend. Some support came in with the Commerce Department's report
showing that retail sales rebounded by much more than expected in the month of
March. The Commerce Department said retail sales soared by 1.6% in March after
edging down by 0.2% in February. Street had expected retail sales to climb by
0.9%. Excluding a jump in sales by motor vehicle and parts dealers, retail
sales still surged up by 1.2% in March following a revised 0.2% dip in
February. Ex-auto sales had been expected to increase by 0.7% compared to the
0.4% drop originally reported for the previous month. The report said closely
watched core retail sales, which exclude autos, gasoline, building materials
and food services, also jumped by 1.0% in March after falling by 0.3% in
February. A separate report from the Labor Department showed initial jobless
claims unexpectedly edged lower in the week ended April 13, falling to a nearly
50-year low. The report said initial jobless claims dipped to 192,000, a
decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level of 197,000. Street had
expected jobless claims to rise to 205,000. With the unexpected decrease,
initial jobless claims dropped to their lowest level since hitting 182,000 in
September of 1969. Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 110.00 points or 0.42
percent to 26559.54, Nasdaq inched up 1.98 points or 0.02% percent to 7998.06
and S&P 500 was up by 4.58 points or 0.16 percent to 2905.03.
Crude oil futures ended higher on
Thursday with marginal gains for the truncated week, as traders weighing near
term crude supply and demand prospects. Oil prices took some support with
tighter supply due to US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, the drop in oil rigs
count, the decline in US crude stockpiles - the first in four weeks - and a
report showing crude oil exports from Saudi Arabia declined by 277,000 barrels
a day to below 7 million barrels per day in February. A report showing a fall
in shipments from Saudi Arabia also added support. Meanwhile, oil trading in
the US and UK was closed for Good Friday. Benchmark crude oil futures for May
surged 24 cents or 0.4 percent to settle at $64 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange. June Brent crude gained 35 cents or 0.5 percent to settle
at $71.97 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.
Reversing its three-session fall, the rupee bounced back to
end higher against the US currency on Thursday, on persistent selling of the
American currency by exporters. Sentiments turned optimistic with report that
investments through participatory notes (P-notes) in domestic capital market
rose to Rs 78,110 crore at the end of March, amid positive market sentiments.
As per the latest SEBI data, the total value of P-note investments in Indian
markets -- equity, debt, and derivatives -- stood at Rs 78,110 crore till
March-end. However, dollar's strength against major global currencies overseas
along with losses in the domestic equity market restricted the further up move.
On the global front, euro fell to a one-week low on Thursday after weak
manufacturing surveys in Europe raised concerns about an economy struggling to
gain traction before the long Easter weekend. Finally, the rupee ended at
69.35, 25 paise stronger from its previous close of 69.60 on Tuesday.
The FIIs as per Thursday's data
were net buyers in equity and debt segments both. In equity segment, the gross
buying was of Rs 5199.08 crore against gross selling of Rs 4187.74 crore, while
in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 436.55 crore with gross sales
of Rs 98.38 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs
2.54 crore against gross selling of Rs 4.36 crore.
The US markets settled higher on
Thursday ahead of the holiday weekend as gains in industrial stocks slightly
outweighed weakness in health-care and energy shares. Asian markets are trading
mixed on Monday as investors awaited the return of major financial markets from
the Good Friday holiday. Indian equity benchmarks before going to long weekend
ended Thursday's volatile trading session in red territory and snapped four-day
winning streak, tracking weak cues from Asian peers. Markets remained shut on
Friday on account of Good Friday. Today, the start of the F&O series expiry
week is likely to be slightly negative tailing weak cues from global markets
amid higher crude oil prices. There will be some cautiousness with a private
report that business sentiments continue to decline for the country's financial
and macro-economic conditions in the second quarter of the year compared to the
same period a year before. As per the report, Composite Business Optimism Index
stands at 78.4 during Q2 2019 as against 85.0 during Q2 2018 marking a 7.7%
decline. Traders may take note of Arvind Panagariya's statement that India must
focus on growth of labour-intensive sectors to create decent jobs for the
masses as well as give serious thought to privatising the public sector banks
(PSBs), emphasized that the reform process must be completed in the coming five
years. However, some respite may come later in the day with government data
showing that India's exports rose to a five-month high of 11 percent in March
on account of higher growth mainly in pharma, chemicals and engineering
sectors, marking the outbound shipments at $331 billion for FY 2018-19. Imports
rose by 1.44 percent to $43.44 billion in March 2019, while trade deficit --
the difference between exports and imports -- narrows to $10.89 billion during
the month under review as compared to $13.51 billion in March 2018. Some
support may also come with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) data that India's
foreign exchange reserves continued its northward push, increasing by $1.105
billion to touch $414.886 billion in the week to April 12. Besides, Counsellor
in India's Permanent Mission to the UN Ashish Sinha has said that India's
growth trajectory holds immense potential for global stakeholders to establish
energy, infrastructure and technology collaboration with the country.
Meanwhile, the government has extended the last date for filing summary sales
return, GSTR-3B, for March month by three days until April 23. There will be
some buzz in the insurance companies stocks with the Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority of India (Irdai) data showing that non-life insurance
firms registered a rise of 13 per cent in their collective premium income to Rs
1.70 trillion in the financial year ended March. There will be lots of earnings
reaction based on the performance of the companies.
Support and
Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)
Index
|
Previous close
|
Support
|
Resistance
|
NSE Nifty
|
11,752.80
|
11,708.82
|
11,826.47
|
BSE Sensex
|
39,140.28
|
38,986.48
|
39,390.77
|
Nifty Top volumes
Stock
|
Volume
|
Previous close
(Rs)
|
Support (Rs)
|
Resistance (Rs)
|
(in Lacs)
|
Tata Motors
|
424.51
|
235.80
|
231.17
|
239.87
|
Yes Bank
|
324.91
|
255.55
|
250.42
|
264.32
|
Wipro
|
274.26
|
284.55
|
279.98
|
289.33
|
ICICI Bank
|
186.60
|
403.35
|
400.30
|
408.70
|
Reliance
Industries
|
179.60
|
1,386.05
|
1,370.78
|
1,395.53
|
Maruti Suzuki will continue to manufacture diesel cars that customers can afford, thus ruling out stopping the production of diesel cars completely.
Reliance Industries' telecom arm -- Jio has added 77.93 lakh customers in February 2019.
Bajaj Finance, the lending arm of Bajaj Finserv, is offering a pre-approved personal loan to its existing customer without the need of any documents.
Wipro is expecting revenue from its IT Services business to be in the range of $2,046 million to $2,087 million for the quarter ending June 30, 2019.