Snapping their seven-days winning
run, Indian equity benchmarks took a breather on Thursday and ended marginally
lower, owing to some profit-taking ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI)
policy outcome tomorrow. Weakness in Asian peers also weighed on the sentiment.
Indian equities began the weekly expiry day on a tepid note amid selling
pressure from foreign institutional investors. Foreign institutional investors
sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data. Some
concern came after Moody's Investors Service issued a negative outlook for
global banks in 2024, attributing the negativity to the repercussions of
central banks' tightening of monetary policies. However, markets managed to cut
some losses in late morning deals, as traders got some support after Industry
chamber CII expects the country's economy to grow at 6.8% in the current fiscal
and accelerate to 7 per cent in 2024-25, driven by the government's continued
focus on infrastructure development and promotion of ease of doing business.
Some support also came with Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry,
Som Parkash's statement that the Startup India initiative was launched by the
Government to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, startups and
encouraging investments in the startup ecosystem of the country. Besides, NITI
Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said that India has potential to grow at 8 per
cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a
functioning democracy. But, markets
failed to erase all the losses and ended marginally in red as some pessimism
remained among traders amid a private report stating that hiring activity for
white-collar jobs witnessed a 12 per cent on-year decline during
October-November largely due to fall in recruitment trends in IT-Software,
telecom and education sectors. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 132.04 points or
0.19% to 69,521.69 and the CNX Nifty was down by 36.55 points or 0.17% to
20,901.15.
The US markets ended higher on
Thursday with Nasdaq settling over one percent higher. The strength on markets
partly reflected ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates ahead of
the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on
Friday. Street currently expect employment to increase by 180,000 jobs in
November after rising by 150,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate
is expected to hold at 3.9 percent. The jobs report could have a significant
impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's
monetary policy meeting next week. While the Fed is widely expected to leave
interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the jobs data to provide
further evidence the central bank could cut rates as soon as March 2024. On the
sectoral front, Semiconductor stocks showed a substantial move to the upside on
the day, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 2.8 percent.
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) moved sharply higher after Meta (META),
Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI said they will use the company's newest AI chip,
the Instinct MI300X. Substantial strength was also visible among airline
stocks, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index soaring by 2.6 percent to its best
closing level in almost four months. On the economic data front, the Labor
Department released a report showing a slight uptick in first-time claims for
U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended December 2nd. The report said
initial jobless claims ticked up to 220,000, an increase of 1,000 from the
previous week's revised level of 219,000.
Crude oil futures ended slightly
lower on Thursday on lingering uncertainty about the outlook for energy demand
due to global economic slowdown. Data released by the General Administration of
Customs today showed China's crude imports dropped to their weakest in four
months in November, trumping bullish demand forecasts from leading industry participants.
Crude oil pieces also fall on data recently showing a larger than expected
increase in U.S. gasoline stockpiles last week, and skepticism over OPEC+'s
recently announced voluntary supply cuts due to fractures within the alliance. Benchmark
crude oil futures for January delivery fell $0.04 or about 0.05 percent to
settle at $69.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for
February delivery lost $0.25 or about 0.33 percent to settle at $74.05 a barrel
on London's Intercontinental Exchange.
Rupee ended lower on Thursday
tracking elevated American currency in the overseas market and a muted trend in
domestic equities. Some concern came after Moody's Investors Service issued a
negative outlook for global banks in 2024, attributing the negativity to the
repercussions of central banks' tightening of monetary policies. Meanwhile,
foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday,
according to exchange data. Investors overlooked report that NITI Aayog vice
chairman Suman Bery said India has potential to grow at 8 per cent as the
country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning
democracy. On the global front, the pound edged up against the dollar and the
euro on Thursday, but sank against the yen, as investor expectations mounted
that the Bank of Japan could signal an end to its ultra-easy monetary policy
next week. Finally, the rupee ended at 83.36 (Provisional), weaker by 4 paise
from its previous close of 83.32 on Wednesday.
The FIIs as per Thursday'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 12029.91 crore against gross
selling of Rs 11829.63 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was
of Rs 297.66 crore with gross sales of Rs 1492.75 crore. Besides, in the hybrid
segment, the gross buying was of Rs 22.05 crore against gross selling of Rs
18.37 crore.
The US markets ended higher on
Thursday after weekly jobless claims data indicated cooling of the U.S. labour
market, aiding expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut by March 2024. Asian
markets are trading mostly in green on Friday tracking overnight gains on Wall
Street. Indian markets snapped their seven-day winning run and ended modestly
lower on Thursday as investors opted to book some profits after recent sharp
gains on strong GDP numbers and BJP's win in assembly elections. Today, markets
are likely to get a positive start tracking firm global cues and ahead of
Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy decision later in the day. There
are expectations that the RBI is likely to maintain status quo on the key repo
rate, holding it steady at 6.5 per cent. Sentiments will get a boost as Niti
Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said India has the potential to grow at 8 per
cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a
functioning democracy. Traders may take note of Union minister Rajeev
Chandrasekhar's statement that the digital economy will contribute 20 per cent
of India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026. However, foreign fund outflows
may dent domestic sentiments. According to provisional data from the National
Stock Exchange, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Indian shares worth
Rs 1,564 crore on a net basis on Thursday. There may be some cautiousness with
a private report that India's retail inflation likely picked up in November due
to higher food prices after declining for three months, bringing it closer to
the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 2 percent-6 percent target
range. Meanwhile, rate sensitive banks, auto and realty stocks will be in focus
today. Also, private sector banks have increased their share in term deposits
to 35 per cent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), up from 32 per
cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022-23 (FY23). There will be some reaction
in insurance industry stocks with a report that the new business premium of
life insurance companies declined by 25.28 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in
November 2023 as the premiums of both the state-owned Life Insurance
Corporation of India (LIC) and private insurers saw a decline.
Support and
Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)
Index
|
Previous close
|
Support
|
Resistance
|
NSE
Nifty
|
20,901.15
|
20,854.21
|
20,944.66
|
BSE
Sensex
|
69,521.69
|
69,329.71
|
69,704.51
|
Nifty Top volumes
Stock
|
Volume
|
Previous close (Rs)
|
Support (Rs)
|
Resistance (Rs)
|
(in Lacs)
|
Tata
Steel
|
346.86
|
130.05
|
129.16
|
131.56
|
NTPC
|
251.34
|
284.80
|
281.31
|
288.26
|
Power
Grid
|
245.34
|
229.75
|
225.20
|
233.35
|
ONGC
|
164.26
|
199.05
|
196.44
|
201.29
|
Adani
Ports
|
148.40
|
1044.00
|
1024.19
|
1061.29
|
- Tata Motors and HDFC Bank have
entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to provide attractive digital
financing solutions for its commercial vehicle customers.
- Tech Mahindra has launched a new
business unit Navixus, within Tech Mahindra Business Process Services.
- Adani Ports and Special Economic
Zone is planning to raise funds through the issue of NCDs or issue or renew preference
shares on a private placement or preferential basis.
- Mahindra & Mahindra is all
set to hike prices of its passenger and commercial vehicle model range from
January next year.