Thursday turned-out to be a fabulous day of trade for Indian equity
benchmarks with frontline gauges recapturing their crucial 14,850 (Nifty) and
50,000 (Sensex) levels. The benchmarks made a gap-up opening in early deals
taking support from Reserve Bank data showing that India's current account
deficit narrowed to $1.7 billion or 0.2 per cent of the GDP in the December
quarter as against $2.6 billion or 0.4 per cent of GDP in the year-ago period.
Sentiments got a boost as the foreign portfolio investors (FPI) have pumped in
more than Rs 2.75 lakh crore ($37 billion) in the Indian equity market during
FY2020-2021. This is the highest ever investment by foreign investors into
Indian equities in the last two decades. Traders also took note of report that
the central government's fiscal deficit at the end of February worked out to be
76 per cent of the revised estimate, indicating that it is likely to remain
within the projections made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month.
However, key indices cut most of their gains in late morning session as traders
got anxious with data showing that the growth of eight core infrastructure
industries declined by 4.6 percent in February 2021, the steepest contraction
in the last six months which could drag the overall industrial production in
the month into the negative territory. The growth rate of the eight
infrastructure sectors stood at 6.4 percent in February 2020. In January this
year, the segments have registered a positive growth of 0.9 per cent. But,
market regained traction to end higher after finance ministry said that GST
collections grew to a record high of Rs 1.23 lakh crore in March 2021, crossing
the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the sixth month straight, indicating rapid
economic recovery post-pandemic Some optimism also came with Economic Affairs
Secretary Tarun Bajaj's statement that the government will borrow Rs 7.24 lakh
crore, which is 60.06 percent of the gross issuances, in the first half of
2021-22 fiscal (H1FY22) to meet resources to perk up the economy hit by the
coronavirus pandemic. According to the Budget 2021-22, the government's gross
borrowing was estimated at Rs 12.05 lakh crore in the financial year beginning
April 1. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 520.68 points or 1.05% to 50,029.83,
while the CNX Nifty was up by 176.65 points or 1.20% to 14,867.35.
The US markets
were closed on Friday on account of Good Friday holiday.
Indian Money market remained closed on
Thursday on account of Annual Bank Closing.
The FIIs as per
Tuesday's data were net buyer in both equity and debt segment. In equity
segment, the gross buying was of Rs 7003.36 crore against gross selling of Rs
6608.35 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1877.79
crore against gross selling of Rs 1016.68 crore. Besides, in the hybrid
segment, the gross buying was of Rs 16.84 crore against gross selling of Rs
29.42 crore.
Asian markets
are trading in green on Monday as the cues from Wall Street on Thursday were
broadly positive on upbeat jobs and manufacturing data. Indian equity markets
ended on a strong note with gains of over one percent on Thursday. The domestic
markets were closed on Friday on account of Good Friday. Today, the start of session
is likely to be negative on rising Covid-19 cases in India. India reported
103,793 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike
of the year, pushing the overall tally to 12,587,920, according to Worldometer.
The death toll from the deadly infection jumped to 165,132. The Maharashtra
government has decided to impose complete lockdown on weekends and a night
curfew in the state to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. The curbs will come into effect from Monday
night. They were announced as Mumbai recorded over 11,000 Covid cases. The
state recorded over 57,000 cases on Sunday - the highest so far. Malls and
multiplexes will remain shut and all private offices, except those engaged in
finance, insurance, banks, telecommunications, and essential services, will
have to work from home. Attendance in government offices will be capped at 50
per cent. Besides, traders will be concerned as Ratings agency Ind-Ra has said
further surge in global commodity prices will have serious implications for
India's economy which is still struggling to come out of the Covid-19 impact.
As per Ind-Ra, a higher retail inflation not accompanied by a commensurate
increase in wage growth will adversely impact the consumption demand and in
turn investment revival in the economy. Traders may take note of report that
the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by USD 2.986 billion to reach
USD 579.285 billion in the week ended March 26.
However, some recovery may be expected in latter trade as traders may
get some support with Revenue and Department of Economic Affairs, Secretary,
Tarun Bajaj's statement the all-time high record collection of Goods and
Service Tax (GST) is due to economic recovery and increased compliance with the
use of technology. GST collection in March this year stood at a record high of
Rs 1,23,902 crore. Traders will also be drawing some comfort with India's
merchandise exports witnessed a huge jump of 58 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and
touched a record $34 billion in March, indicating a recovery in demand.
Sequentially, the growth in merchandise exports was 21 per cent. Banking stocks
will keep buzzing as bank credit to medium-sized firms rose 21 per cent YoY in
February even as a contraction (-1.5 per cent) in loans to large industrial
units dragged credit disbursement to industry. In January this year, loans to
large units were in the contraction zone (-2.5 per cent), while for mid-sized
entities it was 19.1 per cent.
Support
and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)
Index
|
Previous close
|
Support
|
Resistance
|
NSE Nifty
|
14,867.35
|
14,745.46
|
14,936.21
|
BSE Sensex
|
50,029.83
|
49,641.42
|
50,255.37
|
Nifty Top volumes
Stock
|
Volume
|
Previous close (Rs)
|
Support
(Rs)
|
Resistance (Rs)
|
(in Lacs)
|
Tata Motors
|
440.88
|
307.75
|
303.91
|
310.71
|
Tata Steel
|
368.42
|
863.05
|
831.74
|
881.64
|
JSW Steel
|
357.36
|
508.75
|
481.51
|
524.46
|
State Bank of India
|
318.83
|
370.65
|
365.20
|
374.00
|
ITC
|
290.62
|
220.05
|
218.04
|
221.34
|
JSW Steel has commenced production of Hot Rolled Plates from the new 5 MTPA Hot Strip Mill facility at its Dolvi Works.
Wipro has signed an agreement to acquire Ampion, an Australia-based provider of cyber security, DevOps and quality engineering services.
HCL Technologies has entered into an agreement with Tenneco Inc., for a multi-year, integrated application development, modernization, and operations services contract.
ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have tied up with global e-commerce major Amazon and cards major Visa to launch a retail payments entity, which will be a rival to state-owned NPCI.