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PremiumTrade was volatile on Thursday, with the Sensex touching a low of 48,010.55 and a high of 48,887.85. The Nifty moved in a range of 14,353.20-14,597.55 today. IT index fell 1%, while metal, pharma indices rose over 1% each. WPI inflation surged to an over 8-year high of 7.39% in March.
Led by pharma and metal stocks, benchmark domestic indices ended higher on Thursday after a day of volatile trade amid rising covid cases and and a surge in wholesale inflation data.
The Sensex rose 259.62 points or 0.53% to close at 48803.68, while the Nifty advanced 76.70 points or 0.53% to 14581.50.
On the Sensex, 17 of 30 Sensex stocks end higher, with TCS the top gainer.
On the Nifty, TCS, Cipla, ONGC, Wipro and Adani Ports were the top gainers, while Eicher Motors, Grasim Industries, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki and IndusInd Bank fell the most.
Auto and PSU Bank indices fell 1% each, while metal and pharma indices rose over 1% each. BSE midcap and smllcap indices ended flat.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai has decide to once again consolidate its flight operations to one terminal - T2 - from 21 April amid the surge in covid cases in the city. The private airport operator had on 10 March reopened its domestic passenger terminal T-1 for regular flight operations after keeping it closed for nearly a year.
Facebook has signed a deal to buy renewable energy in India from a local firm's wind power project, the social media giant's first such deal in the South Asian nation, the companies said on Thursday.
The 32 megawatt wind power project, located in southern Karnataka state, is part of a larger portfolio of wind and solar projects that Facebook and Mumbai-based CleanMax are working together on for supplying renewable power into India's electrical grid, they said in a joint statement. (Read here)
Oil prices rose on Thursday to the highest level in nearly a month, after jumping 5% in the previous session, driven by increased demand forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and OPEC as major economies recover from the pandemic.
Brent crude was up by 16 cents at $66.74 a barrel, after reaching $66.94 earlier, the highest since 18 March, and gaining 4.6% on Wednesday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rose 12 cents to $63.27 a barrel, earlier rising to $63.48, also the highest since March 18. The contract had risen 4.9% in the previous session.
Mukesh Ambani is diverting oxygen produced at his refineries to help India battle a savage coronavirus outbreak that’s paralyzed the commercial capital as daily new infections spike by a record, as per a Bloomberg report.
Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which operates the world’s biggest refining complex in western India, has started supplying oxygen from Jamnagar to Maharashtra at no cost, according to a company official, who asked not to be identified due to internal policy. The western state will get 100 tons of the gas from Reliance, Eknath Shinde, urban development minister, said in a tweet.
An anticipated revival in demand for passenger vehicles and two-wheelers this fiscal could be hit by pandemic-induced restrictions in Maharashtra and other supply-chain issues.
Automakers, parts suppliers and dealers, especially of passenger vehicles, were expecting demand to bounce back to FY19 levels when the industry saw the highest-ever production and sales. But an exodus of migrant labour, caused by lockdown measures in different parts of the state, could hit production and pull-down sales.
Dealers are also expecting footfalls in showrooms to decline substantially due to the surge in covid cases. (Read here)
The new board and management of IL&FS as part of its quarterly update on the progress of the ongoing group resolution process on Thursday said that it has addressed aggregate debt of ₹43,000 crore till date.
The group has enhanced its estimates of aggregate debt recovery to ₹61,000crore - an increase of ₹5,000 crore over its earlier estimate of ₹56,000 crore. The increased estimate represents resolution of nearly 62% of overall fund based and non-fund based group debt of ₹99,000 crore as of October 2018.
We decipher these through our various frameworks which suggest the current underlying landscape is one of rising price pressures from goods and, more recently, from services but these still seem quite concentrated (particularly for services). Various factors like input costs, price hikes, health of the services sector, INR/USD, crop output, government tax and supply management strategies, etc. could impact inflation but the current path of the pandemic and vaccinations make it highly uncertain.
Thus, FY22 inflation forecasts could be more about views, less about data, consequently have a higher margin of error and thus have to carefully interpreted. We see a similar issue in gauging India’s medium-term inflation dynamics too.
India’s wholesale price-based inflation surged to 7.39% in March, with prices of fuel as well as input costs for manufacturers rising at a time economic recovery is expected to get delayed with the escalating second wave of coronavirus pandemic.
In February, wholesale price index-based inflation was 4.17%.
Food inflation in March stood at 5.28% versus 3.31%, and manufactured products inflation was at 7.34% versus 5.81% in February. (Read here)
The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, which conducts ICSE and ISC exams, is likely to reschedule its board exams following CBSE's decision to postpone Class 12 exams and cancel those of Class 10, given the surge in covid cases.
Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala cut stake in Titan Company during the March quarter, bringing it down to 3.97% at March end from 4.21% in December, as per the shareholding patterns available withs stock exchanges. Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, his wife, continues to hold 1.09% in the company.
When Thierry Delaporte took charge as the chief executive of Wipro Ltd in July last year, his one clear mandate was to bring back the company to growth. As part of this, Delaporte has brought about significant changes to Wipro, such as simplification of its operating model and hiring many senior leadership roles to drive growth in different geographies. While investors are optimistic about these changes, execution holds the key.
After reasonably strong earnings from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd and a robust FY22 guidance from Infosys Ltd, investors will closely monitor Wipro’s March quarter earnings. As per consensus estimates of a survey by Bloomberg, Wipro is expected to report a net profit of ₹2,873.70 crore and revenue of ₹15,986.80 crore for the fiscal fourth quarter (Q4). (Read here)
Gold prices edged higher on Thursday buoyed by a weaker dollar, while investors awaited U.S. weekly jobless claims and March retail sales data for further clarity on the recovery in the world's largest economy. Spot gold was up 0.2% at $1,740.04 per ounce. U.S. gold futures rose 0.2% to $1,740 per ounce.
The Indian rupee has turned into Asia’s worst-performing currency from being the best in the previous quarter. It’s poised for more losses as a resurgence in coronavirus cases to a record threatens to hamstring the economy.
The rupee weakened past 75 per dollar for the first time in eight months this week. Federal Bank Ltd. expects it to fall further to 76 by year-end. The currency’s slide may be exacerbated by unwinding of short dollar positions against the rupee, which ICICI Bank Ltd. estimates has grown to $50 billion. (Read here)
The latest global fund manager survey by BofA Securities showed that 74% of fund managers think Bitcoin is just a bubble.
This is despite the cryptocurrency soaring to new highs in the backdrop of increased adoption by institutional investors. In the past one year, the price of Bitcoin has risen by many folds from around $10,000 to beyond $63,000. Interestingly, the survey comes at a time when Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, has made its stock market debut on the Nasdaq.
The report also pointed out that Bitcoin was the second most-crowded trade after technology stocks, with 10% of respondents expecting the former to outperform other asset classes. While the returns may be mouth-watering, the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency should be taken with a sack full of salt.
"Today, Bitcoin and Ethereum hit new all-time highs of 63,200 BTC/USD and 2,230 ETH/USD, respectively, bringing the crypto-market into unknown territory. Positive signs from miners, and likely the first publicly-traded company to pay the board of directors in Bitcoin contribute heavily to this unknown territory," Mads Eberhardt, cryptocurrency analyst at Saxo Bank said in his blog on 14 April.
On Wednesday, Delhi recorded 17,282 fresh cases, the highest single-day surge in the national capital since the onset of the pandemic, while over 100 fatalities were reported, according to data from the Union health ministry.
Maharashtra reported 58,952 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 35,78,160, while 278 new fatalities pushed the death toll to 58,804, the state health department said.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will buy a consignment of Guyanese crude oil in a push to diversify the sources. According to a news report, citing oil ministry officials, this deal is at competitive rates and is in line with the strategy to have multiple sources of crude oil for Indian refiners.
Even as consumer demand was low due to complete lockdown in most part of FY21, mutual funds (MFs) in India preferred to increase their exposure to domestic cyclicals. Typically, cyclical stocks include companies that make or sell items and services that are in demand when the economy is healthy.
In FY21, fund houses increased their exposure to domestic cyclicals by 160 basis points (bps) to 58%, led by an increase in the weightage of automobiles, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), cement, real estate, chemicals and infrastructure, according to data sourced from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) and NAV India analysed by Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. (Read here)
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