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Benchmarks to make pessimistic start amid weakness in Asian peers
Sep-23-2020

Indian markets ended lower on Tuesday following weakness in global peers. Today, the markets are likely to make pessimistic start amid weakness in Asian peers. Rising coronavirus cases are likely to dampen sentiments in the markets. With 80,391 new cases, India's coronavirus caseload has soared to 5,640,496. Death toll has surpassed the 90,000-mark. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a high-level virtual meeting with chief ministers and health ministers of seven most-affected states today to review the coronavirus situation. There will be some cautiousness as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) projected India’s economy to contract 5.9 per cent in 2020, and warned the country to not repeat its past mistake of announcing austerity measures. It forecast the economy to grow 3.9 per cent next year. However, easing of tensions between India and China may provide investors some relief. In first such moves to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh, India and China agreed to stop sending more troops to the frontline, refrain from unilaterally changing the situation on the ground and avoid taking any actions that may further complicate matters. Some support may come with ICRA’s report that India's current account will swing to a surplus of $30 billion or 1.2 percent of GDP in FY21, due to slowdown in imports during the pandemic, making it clear that it will be a temporary phenomenon. Besides, SEBI has set-up a technical committee on the social stock exchange, which will develop a framework for onboarding profit and non-profit organisations on such bourses and prescribe disclosure requirements relating to financials and governance. There will be some reaction in power stocks as the Union ministry of power drafted a Standard Bidding Document (SBD) for the privatisation of the state-owned power distribution companies. Meanwhile, the initial public offer of Angel Broking was subscribed 77 percent on the first day of subscription on Tuesday. The Rs 600-crore public offer received bids for 1,05,01,827 shares against the issue size of 1,37,25,490 shares.

The US markets ended higher on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank remains committed to using our tools to do what we can, for as long as it takes, to ensure that the recovery will be as strong as possible. Asian markets are trading mostly lower on Wednesday as investors react to recent comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Back home, falling for fourth day in a row, Indian equity benchmarks ended Tuesday’s session with losses of over half percent each, mirroring sell-off in global markets on rising coronavirus cases across the globe. Markets made a cautious start and soon fell sharply, as traders got anxious with CARE Ratings’ a multi-sector survey showed that business activity is unlikely to touch pre-COVID-19 levels before March 2021, and there is a need for the government to step in and give a push to the economy as it has not done enough till now. The smaller businesses have reported more stress than the larger ones in the survey of over 600 companies conducted by the agency between August 25 and September 13. However, markets gave up most of their initial losses to come off their intraday low point in afternoon deals, as traders found some solace with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that the current crisis should be used as an opportunity to make the transition to clean energy smoother, faster, more resilient and affordable. Traders also took a note of former Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya’s statement that India will need fiscal stimulus, lower interest rates, faster bank recapitalisation and privatisation of some PSUs to return to 7 percent growth rate. Though, frontline indices unable to hold recovery mode and resumed their downward trend in late afternoon session, tracking losses in index-heavyweights Maruti Suzuki, Larsen & Toubro and Indusind Bank. Traders also took a note of reports that markets regulator Sebi permitted foreign portfolio investors (FPI) to write off shares of all the companies which they are unable to sell. As per operational guidelines for FPIs and designated depository participants (DDPs) issued in November 2019, write-off of securities held by FPIs who wished to surrender their registration was permitted only in respect of shares of companies which are unlisted/ illiquid / suspended/ delisted. Meanwhile, India's imports from China declined by 27.63 percent during April-August this fiscal to $21.58 billion over the same period previous year. Value of imports from China stood at $4.98 billion in August and $5.58 in July. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 300.06 points or 0.79% to 37,734.08, while the CNX Nifty was down by 96.90 points or 0.86% to 11,153.65.
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