All is Well for the Markets
After posting back-to-back losses on Friday and Monday, the market seems to be in a buoyant mood and as per early cues from SGX Nifty, bulls are likely to kick off in the first trading session for the month of October. This is positive news. The news bulletin in favour of the bull’s camp this morning is that a panel of secretaries has approved the sale of the government’s entire shareholding in four PSUs, namely, BPCL, SCI, THDC India and NEEPCO, while it also cleared a sale of 30 per cent stake in Concor. This came coupled with some positive development in the US markets after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro dismissed rumours of the Trump administration considering delisting Chinese companies from the US stock exchanges. These two key developments are likely to overshadow the core sector growth data, which was released yesterday post market hours. As reported, growth in eight core sectors in August was the lowest since April 2015. The SGX Nifty is currently trading 22 points up at 11,560 levels. In today’s session automotive companies will be in focus as the September automotive sales data begins to trickle in from today.
The Asian stock indices were seen trading in green in early deals on Tuesday and helping the sentiments is a positive overnight close at Wall Street where the indices ended the final trading session of the quarter on an upbeat note. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index has surged 0.70 per cent while markets in Hong Kong and China are closed for holidays.
Back home, the equity benchmark indices closed Monday’s session in the red on the back of heavy selling witnessed in the banking and pharmaceutical stocks. However, a recovery was seen in the second half of the session as IT stock and index pivotal Reliance Industries gave the much needed support. At the closing bell, Nifty closed below the 11,500 mark, down by 0.33 per cent and the BSE Sensex was down by 0.40 per cent at 38,667. Amongst the broader market indices, both Nifty Mid-Cap and Small-Cap ended lower by 1.51 and 1.58 per cent, respectively. On the sectoral front, barring Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG, all the other sectoral indices closed negative. Nifty PSU and Nifty Private Bank were the top decliners. The advance-decline ratio was in favour of decliners.
The US stock markets the ended final session of the quarter on a positive note as rumours of Trump administration’s plans to ban Chinese stocks listed on major US stock exchanges were denied by the US Treasury. At the closing bell, the Dow advanced 97 points, the S and P 500 gained 15 points and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 60 points.
A majority of the European stocks ended higher on the first trading session of the week as traders reacted to comments by the US Treasury stating that the Trump administration had no plans to impose restriction on Chinese companies. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 ended higher by 0.38 and 0.66 per cent, respectively while UK’s FTSE 100 shed 0.24 per cent.