Back
PremiumWelcome to the Mint live blog. Track this space for latest stock market updates.
Snapping a 10-day winning streak, benchmark indices tumbled on global meltdown. Sensex plunged 1066 points to end at 39,728 and Nifty slipped 2.5% to 11,680. Investors lost ₹3,33,360.15 crore in trade today.
Market players booked profit amid fears of a second wave of virus, as large European cities ordered clampdowns.
On the 30-share Sensex, barring Asian Paints, all stocks ended in the red. Bajaj Finance fell around 5%.
On the Nifty, only three stocks advanced and 47 declined. The volatility index VIX rose 9% as the market breadth remained weak.
All sectoral indices ended in the red with banks and IT clocking the biggest loss.
Londoners will be banned from mixing with other households indoors and Paris is set for a curfew, as European leaders struggle to cope with record new coronavirus cases around the region, a Bloomberg report said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government will mandate tighter restrictions in the U.K. capital starting this weekend, while French President Emmanuel Macron will confine residents of nine of the country’s biggest cities to their homes between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. for four weeks from Saturday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel renewed an appeal to citizens to abide by hygiene and distancing rules and avoid groups.
Asian markets finished lower today tracking weakness in markets world over. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 2.06% while Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 0.51% and China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.26%.
Indian rupee ended lower at 73.38 per dollar tracking domestic equity market. It closed at 73.29 on Wednesday.
Concerns about the reimposition of virus lockdowns, stalled vaccine trials and dimming hopes of new US stimulus soon weighed on Asian and European markets Thursday. DAX Germany is down 3% while London's FTSE 100 is off 2.29% and France's CAC 40 is lower by 0.12%.
Tata Steel top gainer and HCL Tech biggest loser
Adani Green Energy Ltdon Thursday said it has transferred 205 MW solar assets to its JV business with French energy major TOTAL SA for about ₹1,632 crore.
India’s recently announced demand stimulus measures worth ₹46,675 crore or 0.2% of GDP highlight the country’s “very weak fiscal position" and will provide limited support to growth, Moody’s Investors Service said on Thursday.
“Notwithstanding the fiscal prudence of the measures, the small scale of the stimulus highlights limited budgetary firepower to support the economy during a very sharp contraction, a credit negative," said the rating agency which has assigned India the lowest investment grade with negative outlook.
Television monitoring agency BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) has said that it shall pause publishing of weekly data for news channels for the next 8-12 weeks. The agency added that its technical committee will “review and augment the current standards of measuring and reporting the data of niche genres, to improve their statistical robustness and to significantly hamper the potential attempts of infiltrating the panel homes."
BARC will continue to release weekly audience estimates for the genre of news by state and language.
The telecom department has opposed splitting of upfront payment that mobile companies need to make to renew permits for spectrum that will expire from July 21.
Piramal Enterprises on Thursday said it has appointed Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl and Economic Law Practice Managing Partner Suhail Nathani as independent directors to its board, effective 14 October.
Industrial workers' salary and government employees’ dearness allowance (DA) are likely to go up as the union government is set to revise the base year of the Consumer Price Index -- Industrial Workers (CPI-IW).
The base year will be revised to 2016 from 2001 to reflect changing consumption pattern of the working class population over the years. The CPI-IW is used as a benchmark for calculating dearness allowance for government employees, dearness relief for pensioners and wages for industrial workers. (Full report)
Oil held gains near $41 a barrel after an industry report pointed to a sharper-than-expected drop in American crude stockpiles.
Futures in New York were steady after gaining 2.1% Wednesday. U.S. inventories fell by 5.42 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute reported, according to people familiar with the data. That would be the biggest weekly drop since August if confirmed by government figures due Thursday. The report also showed declines in gasoline and distillate stockpiles.
Dismissing media reports as speculative, Association of Mutual Funds in India, (AMFI) has clarified on Thursday that it has not written to the market regulator proposing launch of new index neither it has suggested capping any stock in the index. In a statement, AMFI said that the industry will continue to adhere to Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) guidance on the capping of a single stock.
AMFI’s clarification comes in the wake of media reports that stated AMFI had sent a petition to the market regulator to create a new index as fund managers were not able to capture Reliance Industries performance in their portfolio due to regulatory norm. Fund house’s exposure to a single stock is capped at 10% as per norms.
The company reported 56% year on year (YoY) growth in profit before tax at ₹110 crore in the September quarter. The company's operational revenues grew 11.5 per cent YoY at ₹430 crore.
Yesterday, global cues were a bit subdued early in the morning and despite this, our markets opened lower and then extended losses as the day progressed. The weakness was mainly led by the IT counters, that were experiencing heavy profit taking after a recent relentless run. Then banking joined hands to drag the markets lower. But all of a sudden at the stroke of the penultimate hour, markets just took off and financials were the major charioteer to this late surge. Eventually, Nifty not only recouped losses but also ended well inside the positive territory. In last couple of days, markets cooled off a bit after reaching the 12000 mark; but with yesterday’s sharp recovery, 11800 has now become a sacrosanct support.
Nifty precisely attracted buyers in the support area of 11867 - 11800 and fortunately, we managed to participate in the sudden up move in the banking space. Now the way banking index is shaped up, there is a high possibility that we may see a convincing move beyond 12000 for Nifty today. As far as levels are concerned, 12050-12100 are the next levels to watch out for; whereas on the downside, 11900-11800 have become immediate supports. Since last few days, we have been continuously mentioning how broader market is quiet and remained unmoved in the recent rally. But yesterday, in the last hour surge, midcap index too participated well and a follow up in the coming session, would certainly bode well for the bulls.
Global fund managers see US elections as the second biggest risk for the markets, showed the latest Bank of America (BofA) Securities survey. In October, the US election jumped a spot higher on the list of tail risks for the market. According to the survey, about 23% of those surveyed are worried about the US elections. This is higher than the 18% in September.
Of the total 224 panelists, 61% see contested outcome of the US elections causing maximum market volatility in the fourth quarter. Contested election is a scenario in which the validity of the result is challenged by the losing candidate. (Read here)
Yesterday, Indian Rupee appreciated by 0.22 percent while the Dollar Index decreased by 0.15 percent. India’s CPI inflation for September came in at 7.34 percent remaining well above RBI’s tolerance band for sixth consecutive month. August retail inflation was 6.69 percent. U.S. economic data since May has been “surprisingly strong," though it will still take perhaps another year for output to claw back to its pre-pandemic peak, according to Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida. President Trump’s proposal for an extra stimulus package to support the economy fell significantly short of expectations. Despite this news, House Speaker Pelosi showed confidence that a deal will be reached eventually. CPI data from US came in line with market expectations at 0.2 percent for Sep’20. Positive data and positive comments from IMF may support the currency. As of today traders can go for sell in USDINR at 73.50, with the stop loss of 73.70 and for the target of 72.90. We are expecting appreciation in USDINR in short term and it may test 72.50 levels soon.
The Indian rupee opened flat at 73.32 per dollar on Thursday. The local currency closed at 73.29 on Wednesday.
Shares of Likhita Infrastructure listed at ₹130 per share on BSE today, a premium of 8.4% against the issue price.
Gold and silver prices fell in Indian markets, tracking softer global rates as chances of a US stimulus package being rolled out before the November elections faded. On MCX, December gold futures declined 0.4% to ₹50,360 per 10 gram as the precious metals fell for the second day in three days. December silver futures fell 0.9% to ₹61,064 per kg. In the previous session, gold had edged up 0.5% while silver had jumped 1.6%.
Nifty Bank and Auto gain
Axis Bank, Tata Steel were the top gainers. Infosys slipped in the red as IT stocks gave up gains
Infosys on Thursday became the fifth Indian firm to cross ₹5 trillion market capitalisation after the stock rallied nearly 61% so far this year.
The stock touched a fresh record high of ₹1185 on the BSE, up 4.3% from its previous close with a market cap of ₹5.04 trillion after the company posted better than expected earnings and also raised its annual revenue growth forecast on continued strength in its digital services operations. At 9.30am, the stock rose 2% to ₹1151 from its previous close. The Sensex index was trading marginally lower by 0.29%; year-to-date, Infosys rose 61%.
Markets opened flat in volatile trade and soon turned red. Tata Steel was the top gainer while ICICI bank the biggest loser.
Oil held gains near $41 a barrel after an industry report pointed to a sharper-than-expected drop in American crude stockpiles.
Futures in New York were steady after gaining 2.1% Wednesday. US inventories fell by 5.42 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute reported, according to people familiar with the data. That would be the biggest weekly drop since August if confirmed by government figures due Thursday. The industry report also showed declines in gasoline and distillate stockpiles.
The Tata group is in talks to buy a stake in online grocer BigBasket as it plots to join Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Amazon and Walmart group in a market that is seeing explosive growth following the pandemic and lockdowns.
Two people familiar with the matter said the Mumbai-based conglomerate may in the first step join the ongoing fundraise of Alibaba-backed BigBasket, which is looking to raise around $200 million in primary equity infusion.
The oil and gas pipeline infrastructure service provider will list on the exchanges today. The final issue price has been fixed at ₹120 per share.
US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi were "far apart" on another coronavirus economic relief package, and that a deal would be hard to reach before the elections, but he would keep trying.
The White House and Democrats and Republicans in Congress are under mounting pressure to hammer out a fiscal stimulus deal to help Americans, but the two sides are divided over several priorities.
