Post Session: Quick Review

Selling pressure in last leg of trade forced Indian benchmarks to end Tuesday’s session in red. Markets come off from day’s high levels amid profit booking by investors. Traders preferred to paly safe ahead Federal Reserve policy meeting due on tomorrow. Since morning indices traded with healthy gains. As for broader indices, the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index ended in green. Traders were seen piling up positions in Auto sectors’ stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT, Metal and Banking sectors’ stocks.

Markets made positive start and extended their gains amid foreign fund inflows. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought Rs 169.09 crore shares on April 29, provisional data from the NSE showed. Besides, some support came as the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its monthly economic review said that the Indian economy could grow faster than 7% in this financial year. Traders took note of report that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman underscored the need for a stable government to achieve the goal of becoming Viksit Bharat by 2047. In afternoon session, markets scaled day’s high levels, as traders remain energized amid a private report stating that India's services exports will increase to $800 billion by 2030 from $340 billion in 2023, making the external sector resilient to supply-side shocks and reducing rupee volatility. It said India's foreign trade policy announced last year targeted $1 trillion of service exports by 2030. However, markets failed to hold their gains and ended into red territory.

On the global front, European markets were trading mostly in red ahead of a busy day of earnings and major data releases in the region. Asian markets ended mostly in green as the manufacturing sector in China continued to expand in April, and at a faster pace, with a manufacturing PMI score of 51.4. That's up from 51.1 and it moved further above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. Underpinning the latest acceleration in manufacturing sector growth was better demand conditions. Back home, ICRA said India's net oil import bill could widen to $101-104 billion in current fiscal from $96.1 billion in 2023-24 and any escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict could impart an upward pressure on the value of imports.

The BSE Sensex ended at 74,482.78, down by 188.50 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 74,346.40 and 75,111.39. There were 12 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.49%, while Small cap index was up by 0.10%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.70%, Realty up by 1.46%, Power up by 1.04%, Consumer Discretionary up by 0.93% and Utilities was up by 0.80%, while IT down by 0.98%, TECK down by 0.98%, Metal down by 0.85%, Oil & Gas down by 0.85% and Basic Materials was down by 0.56% were the top losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 4.68%, Power Grid up by 2.71%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.52%, Indusind Bank up by 1.43% and Bajaj Finserv up by 1.23%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.08%, Tata Steel down by 1.46%, JSW Steel down by 1.45%, HCL Tech down by 1.42% and Sun Pharma down by 1.29% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, Economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its April 2024 issue of Monthly Economic Review (MER) said that the Indian economy has continued to do well in the last two months and forecast of an above-normal monsoon augurs well for the immediate future. NCAER said a range of high-frequency indicators reveal the resilience of the domestic economy with the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for manufacturing at a 16-year high and UPI, the leading digital payments system, touching the highest volume since its inception in 2016.

According to NCAER, Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections reached Rs 1.8 lakh crore in March, the second best since its rollout in 2017, while UPI recorded 13.4 billion transactions (in volume) in March 2024, the highest since its introduction, registering a growth of 55.3 per cent on a year-on-year basis. NCAER Director General Poonam Gupta said ‘These high frequency indicators, coupled with a more benign global outlook projected by the IMF and WTO bode well for the Indian economy during the current year’.

According to the report, Consumer Price Index (CPI) headline inflation was down to 4.9 per cent in March from 5.1 per cent in February while core inflation came down to 3.2 per cent during the same period. The report said employment indicators again showed mixed trends with an increase in the number of net new subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on a year-on-year basis. However, it added the overall online hiring activities as per the Naukri JobSpeak Index, moderated year-on-year.

The CNX Nifty ended at 22,604.85, down by 38.55 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 22,568.40 and 22,783.35. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 4.57%, Power Grid up by 2.77%, Shriram Finance up by 2.39%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.91% and Indusind Bank up by 1.91%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 1.93%, BPCL down by 1.85%, JSW Steel down by 1.51%, HCL Tech down by 1.50% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.47% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European markets were trading mostly in red; France’s CAC fell 21.13 points or 0.26% to 8,044.02 and Germany’s DAX was down by 81.23 points or 0.45% to 18,037.09. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 30.02 points or 0.37% to 8,177.05.

Asian markets settled mostly higher on Tuesday, with the weakness in gold, crude oil, strong corporate earnings report and on optimism over more stimulus measures in mainland China followed by mixed PMI data. Japan's Nikkei advanced to its two-week high level followed by robust industrial production growth. While, investors also digested muted unemployment data and slower than expected retail sales growth. Market also closely monitored currency moves amid reports on intervention of Japanese authorities to support the yen as it tumbled to 160 per dollar.