Sensex jumps 1000 pts, Nifty up 280 pts; RIL, Nestle shine

Indian shares advanced more than 1.5% on Friday, aided by high-weightage IT and financials stocks, as investors find valuations attractive after a recent correction, ahead of key economic data to gauge the path for future rate hikes.

The Nifty 50 index climbed 280 points to close at 17,360. The S&P BSE Sensex rose more than 1000 points to end the week just below 59,000, at 58,991.

All 13 major sectoral indexes advanced. The heavyweight IT gained more than 2%. Financial indices along with Metal, Auto and Realty jumped over 1% each.

Reliance Industries, the company with the biggest market capitalisation and weightage on the Nifty 50 index, climbed over 4% after starting the process of demerger of its financial services business. Infosys and ICICI were other major gainers in today's trading. Apollo Hospitals and Sun Pharma shed around a per cent each.

Asian stocks followed Wall Street higher Friday ahead of a United States inflation update traders hope might prompt the Federal Reserve to ease plans for more interest rate hikes.

Japan's Nikkei share average rose on Friday — the last trading day of the country's fiscal year — and posted its best week in two months, as easing banking crisis concerns and a weaker yen bolstered investor sentiment.

The Nikkei finished the day up 0.93% staying above the psychological 28,000 mark. For the week, the Nikkei rallied 2.4%, the most since Jan. 27.

China stocks rose on Friday as Chinese manufacturing activity growth beat expectations, while spin-off and listing plans of some internet giants boosted sentiment in the Hong Kong market.

China's blue-chip CSI 300 Index closed up 0.3%, and the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.4%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, meanwhile, gained 0.6%, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index climbed 0.8%.

European shares rose on the last trading session of a turbulent March, as investors awaited U.S. and eurozone inflation reports for more clues on global interest rate moves amid receding fears of a banking crisis.

UK's FTSE 100 inched up as miner Rio Tinto rose after signing a partnership to develop a copper project, while relief that the domestic economy avoided a recession last year also aided sentiment.

Data by the Office for National Statistics showed UK's economy grew in the fourth quarter as the country narrowly avoided a recession. Economic output increased 0.1% in the October to December period, while it was expected that the economy would not show any growth.

Automaker Citroen has commenced export of its vehicles from Kamarajar Port Ltd in Tamil Nadu, the company said on Friday.

Chairman of Kamarajar Port Ltd Sunil Paliwal, along with senior company officials, flagged off the first batch of vehicles at an event here.

In February, Citroen, which is a part of Stellantis Group, inked a pact with Kamarajar Port, which is located 24 km north of Chennai Port in the city, for shipping out vehicles to the overseas market.

Stellantis Group was formed by the merger of two global auto majors FCA and Groupe PSA.

PAIPL, the Indian affiliate of Citroen India, would be exporting 'Made in India' C3 B-hatch vehicles to countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Africa from the port. (PTI)

Oravel Stays - which operates hospitality tech firm OYO - on Friday pre-filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with stock market regulator Sebi, sources said. Sources close to the company told PTI OYO may launch its initial public offering (IPO) around Diwali this year.

Unlike the traditional route where companies have to launch the IPO within 12 months from the Sebi approval, or final observation; in the pre-filing route, an IPO can be floated within 18 months from the date of Sebi's final comments. (Read More)

Coal India Ltd said on Friday it had breached its annual production target of 700 million tonnes, the first time it had surpassed its goal since the fiscal year that ended in March 2006.

The world's largest coal mining company will likely end the fiscal year ending on Friday with an output of 703.4 million tonnes, it said, 13% higher than the 622.6 million tonnes it produced the previous fiscal year.

"The volume increase of a whopping 81 million tonnes in a single year, by fiscal year 2023 end, would be a historic high since the company's inception," the company said in a statement on Friday.

Coal India last achieved its annual production target in 2006, when it produced 343.4 million tonnes against a plan to produce 343 million tonnes. (Reuters)

Inflation in the 20 countries that use the euro currency slowed to 6.9 per cent in March, the lowest level in a year, with food costs still on the rise while energy prices fell, making a sharp turnaround after months of punishing increases.

Consumer prices in the eurozone dropped from the 8.5 per cent recorded in February, according to data released Friday by the European Union's statistics agency, Eurostat.

The inflation has dropped to its lowest level in a year since since peaking at 10.6 per cent in October.

But prices for food, alcohol and tobacco rose by a painful 15.4 per cent, faster than the previous month's 15 per cent, in a sign that European consumers are still getting squeezed.

Energy prices, however, fell 0.9 per cent — an abrupt change of direction after rising at double-digit rates over the past year. (PTI)

Developing economies in Asia have mostly regained ground lost during the pandemic but are seeing their recoveries stall as productivity lags, the World Bank said in a report released Friday.

The report forecasts that growth in the region including China will pick up pace this year after the world's No. 2 economy relaxed pandemic restrictions on travel and other activities.

But recoveries elsewhere in the region, excluding China, will moderate as pressures of inflation and growing household debt slow consumer spending, it said.

Across the Asia-Pacific, economies are expected to grow at a 5.1% annual pace this year, up from 3.5% in 2022, the report said.

But not including China, growth is expected to slip to 4.9% in 2023 after a rebound from the worst of the pandemic of 5.8% in 2022, it said.

Major Asian economies like Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam will see their recoveries slow and meanwhile face risks from weakening global growth, spillover from the war in Ukraine and climate change disasters. (PTI)

India’s central bank will likely go for one more quarter point rate increase next week, in line with the US Federal Reserve, but domestic compulsions may result in a pause after that, said Shubhada Rao, founder of economic research firm QuantEco Research.

The Reserve Bank of India, like most emerging market central banks, will closely follow what its American counterpart has been doing, but “need not follow every step of what Fed does,” said Rao in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Rishaad Salamat and Haslinda Amin. “Domestic compulsions will somewhere also begin to guide the central bank’s policy direction.”

The RBI’s six-member rate-setting panel will meet April 3, 5 and 6 to likely raise the benchmark rate for a seventh successive time after inflation jumped above the central bank’s upper target band of 6% in the first two months of the year. Persistently high core inflation, over 6% for 17 straight months, is holding back policymakers from easing on rates amid early signs of a demand slowdown. (Bloomberg)

India’s steel production is estimated to grow 4-7% to 123-127 million tonnes in FY24, CareEdge Research said on Friday.

The domestic consumption growth rate is also expected to be healthy at 8-10% in FY24, driven by increased infrastructure spending, a surge in real estate and construction activities, and strong auto sales.

As India has entered its pre-election year in 2023, the government is likely to increase investments both at the state and central level. This includes a 33% increase in budgetary capital expenditure to Rs. 10 lakh crores for infrastructure, a capital outlay of Rs. 2.4 lakh crore for Indian Railways, and the announcement of 100 transport infrastructure projects. These initiatives bode well for domestic demand. (Read More)

China stocks rose on Friday as Chinese manufacturing activity growth beat expectations, while spin-off and listing plans of some internet giants boosted sentiment in the Hong Kong market.

** China's blue-chip CSI 300 Index closed up 0.3%, and the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.4%.

** Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, meanwhile, gained 0.6%, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index climbed 0.8%.

** China's official manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) stood at 51.9, against 52.6 in February, slightly exceeding expectations of 51.5.

** "The PMI indicates China's economic recovery is on track," said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. "We witnessed many policy actions to boost confidence ... (which) will help the economy to keep the strong momentum. We think GDP growth may surpass 6% this year." (Reuters)

 Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd or RIL have witnessed huge buying since early morning deals on Friday's session. Reliance share price today opened with an upside gap and went on to hit an intraday high of ₹2,322 apiece levels on NSE, logging more than a 3.75 per cent intraday rise during the weekend deals. According to stock market experts, this rise in Reliance shares can be attributed to the NCLT approval to the demerger of RIL and new NBFC — Reliance Strategic Investments Ltd, which is expected to be rebranded as Jio Financial Services — in 1:1 ratio after the take over. Reliance has informed Indian bourses about the NCLT approval and the company board meeting has been fixed on 2nd May 2023 in this regard.

Speaking on the reason for the rally in Reliance share price today, Ravi Singhal, CEO at GCL Broking said, "Reliance share price has been ascending today after the NCLT approval to RIL for demerger of shares in 1:1 ratio. The NCLT has approved allocation of one Reliance' new NBFC share against one Reliance shares to each shareholders of the RIL. This has worked as short term positive sentiment from fundamental perspective." (Read More)

The latest survey has revealed that more than 1,800 freshers, recruited by top MNCs during campus placements, have been waiting for almost a year to be onboarded.

A survey by Forum for IT employees (FITE) has revealed 1,000 recruiters belong from Telangana alone. Times of India reported that some companies are doing the rounds of campuses this year also without onboarding the previous year's batch students. (Read More)

India's Go Digit Insurance has re-filed draft papers for a $440 million initial public offering (IPO) after addressing the market regulator's concerns related to the company's employee stock plans, which had stalled the offering for months.

The IPO comprises a fresh issue of shares worth 12.5 billion rupees ($152.1 million) and an offer for sale of 109.4 million shares, according to the draft prospectus – unchanged from its last filing – dated March 30.

Digit, which operates in the general insurance sector and counts Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa's Fairfax Group and TVS Capital Funds among its backers, first filed for an IPO in August last year.

However, its listing plans were stalled by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in September because of compliance problems related to share issuances. SEBI restarted a review later that month.

The IPO faced another setback in January this year after SEBI raised certain compliance issues related to employee stock plans in a private letter. (Reuters)

The government released the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2023 on Friday, which aimed to increase the country's exports to USD 2 trillion by 2030. The policy proposes to shift from an incentives-based regime to a remission and entitlement-based one to achieve this goal.

During a media briefing on the recently launched FTP 2023, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Sarangi mentioned that, unlike the previous practice of announcing 5-year FTP, the new policy does not have an end date and will be updated periodically as per the requirement. (Read More)

Larsen and Toubro (L&T) on Friday announced that L&T Construction has won “significant" engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) orders for its power transmission and distribution business.

L&T classifies orders between ₹1,000 crore and ₹2,500 crore as “significant".

The multiple EPC orders include establishment of 765kV and 400kV gas insulated substations, to serve as pooling substations, in the Khavda Renewable Energy (RE) zone. The Khavda RE park being developed in Gujarat’s Kutch region, will be one of the largest of its kind in the world, the company said. (Read More)

India’s direct selling industry reported a 5.3% growth in annual sales, crossing ₹19,000 crore in the financial year 2022, as per data released by the Indian Direct Selling Association on Thursday.

Wellness and nutraceutical products dominated the sales registered by the direct selling industry in the country, according to the report.

“The Indian Direct Selling industry registered a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13%, growing from ₹11,650 crores in 2017-18 to ₹19,020 crores in 2021-22. The share of IDSA members in the total sales of the Direct Selling industry stood at 55% in 2021-22. Of this the wellness and nutraceutical category contributed 59% of direct selling sales in India, followed by 22% revenue contribution by the cosmetics and personal category," IDSA said in its annual report released Thursday. (Read More)

Square Four Projects India shares are one of the potential multibagger stocks for 2023. This small-cap stock has risen from around ₹8 to ₹15 apiece levels, delivering to the tune of 85 per cent in year-to-date (YTD) time. This potential multibagger penny stock for 2023 is in focus today as board of directors of the company is going to consider the proposal for stock split in its board meeting today. The small-cap company has informed Indian bourses about the proposed stock split and scheduled board meeting in this regard.

Informing Indian bourses about the stock split proposal, the potential multibagger stock for 2023 said, "We would like to inform you that a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company will be held on Friday, the 31st day of March, 2023 at 4.00 P.M. at the Registered Office of the Company at 238A, A J C Bose Road, 2nd Floor, Kolkata- 700 020 to consider and approve the proposal for Stock Split (reduction in face value) of the equity share of the Company." (Read More)

Commenting on the rising gold prices in India, Rahul Joseph, Founder and Director of White Gold said “Gold prices in India have been on the rise for the past few years and can be attributed to various factors including the global economy, currency fluctuations, and changes in demand as well as supply of gold. Additionally, demand for gold in India has remained strong due to its cultural and religious significance, particularly during festivals and weddings. It has more or less been a traditional investment option in India. For most people, it's a safe haven asset that can provide a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation. Despite some fluctuations, the trend of rising gold prices in India is expected to continue in the near future".

The Indian rupee was trading higher versus the U.S. currency on Friday, helped by the dollar's struggles and the positive risk mood.

The rupee was quoting at 82.20 to the dollar at 11:32 a.m. IST compared with 82.3375 in the previous session. The local currency reached a high of 82.10.

"The usual importers' orders that we consistently see on dips (on USD/INR) means the 82-level holds," a trader at a private sector bank said.

"On dips, it is either the oil companies or the Reserve Bank of India that the rupee has to contend with. The last day of the fiscal year is an added reason for the RBI to buy dollars."

The rupee's level on the last day of the fiscal year could potentially impact the RBI's dividend payout to the government, according to economists.

Asian currencies were higher on the day, assisted by the upbeat risk that affected demand for the safe-haven dollar and U.S. bonds. Receding worries over the U.S. banking sector is prompting investors to be more constructive on risk. (Reuters)