HOME > MARKETS > MARKET COMMENTARY
  MARKET COMMENTARY
EQUITY
Bourses end last trading day of FY24 on firm note
Mar-28-2024

Extending winning momentum for second straight day, Indian equity benchmarks ended the last trading day of the financial year 2023-23 (FY24) on a firm note, with Sensex and Nifty recapturing their crucial psychological levels of 73,600 and 22,300, respectively. Markets made a gap up opening and continuously strengthened for most part of the session as traders took encouragement with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the government will continue the push on its reforms agenda in its third term since political continuity, along with a predictable and stable economic environment and taxation structure, is important to achieve the laid-down developmental goals. Some support also came with provisional data from the NSE showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 2,170.32 crore on March 27, 2024. 

Local bourses extended gains in afternoon deals, taking support from Chairman of the 16th Finance Commission Arvind Panagariya’s statement that India can realistically push its economic growth close to 9 per cent from the current 7 per cent or so, by implementing a few more reforms in the next five years. Traders also took a note of the Finance Ministry’s statement that the Centre plans to raise Rs 7.5 lakh crore through market borrowing in the April-September period of 2024-25 (H1FY25) to fund the revenue gap. In the next financial year (FY25), the government plans to borrow a total of Rs 14.13 lakh crore. Sentiments remained positive amid reports that India's central bank will keep building its forex reserves as it seeks to build larger buffers, and strong inflows into the country's equity and debt markets give it an opportunity to do so. However, markets trimmed some gains in final hour of trade but managed to close in green terrain.  

On the global front, European markets were trading in green ahead of a long Easter holiday weekend. Asian markets settled mostly lower on Thursday with some traders booking profits after the recent strength in the markets as they cautiously awaited key US inflation data and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech while the markets are closed on Good Friday. 

Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 655.04 points or 0.90% to 73,651.35 and the CNX Nifty was up by 203.25 points or 0.92% to 22,326.90. 

The BSE Sensex touched high and low of 74,190.31 and 73,120.33 respectively. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.62%, while Small cap index was up by 0.33%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.69%, Capital Goods up by 1.54%, PSU up by 1.54%, Utilities up by 1.29% and Auto up by 1.19%, while there were no losing sectoral indices on the BSE. 

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finserv up by 3.91%, Bajaj Finance up by 3.09%, SBI up by 2.53%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.26% and Power Grid Corporation up by 2.21%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 0.50%, Reliance Industries down by 0.37%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.26% and HCL Technologies down by 0.26% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, terming economic expansion in the range of 7 per cent perfectly good, Member of Economic Advisory Council to the PM, Sanjeev Sanyal has said India should be satisfied with the current growth rate unless the external environment improves. Further, he said it was necessary to protect the hard-earned macroeconomic stability.

Sanyal stated ‘Now look, it is possible for us to hit double-digit growth, but I would actually be rather careful about it. This whole game is about compounding growth.’ India's economy grew at better-than-expected 8.4 per cent in the final three months of 2023, logging the fastest pace in the past one-and-a-half years. The growth rate in October-December helped take the estimate for the current fiscal to 7.6 per cent.

He said ‘We should not attempt to grow this economy by anything more than what it is growing now. If the external environment does not dramatically improve, because what will happen then, is that our external accounts will begin to overheat, our inflation will begin to overheat and so on.’

He noted that the key is not to lose control of macroeconomic stability as it was a very hard-earned thing. He said ‘You can only generate very high rates of growth if the external environment is conducive, otherwise we should be satisfied with what we are doing or even something in the range of 7 per cent is perfectly good.’

The CNX Nifty traded in a range of 22,516.00 and 22,163.60. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Grasim Industries up by 4.42%, Bajaj Finserv up by 4.07%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.44%, Bajaj Finance up by 3.02% and Eicher Motors up by 2.87%. On the flip side, Shriram Finance down by 1.10%, Axis Bank down by 0.60%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.60%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.54% and Reliance Industries down by 0.52% were the top losers.

European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC rose 37.64 points or 0.46% to 8,242.45, Germany’s DAX gained 27.82 points or 0.15% to 18,504.91 and UK’s FTSE 100 increased 25.05 points or 0.32% to 7,957.03. 

Asian markets settled mostly lower on Thursday as investors cautiously awaiting US personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation data and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech to gauge the potential timing of monetary easing. Japanese shares declined, while Japanese yen languishes near 34-year lows. However, Hong Kong shares rebounded after Chinese President Xi Jinping promised more policy support to build a world-class business environment in China.

Asian Indices

Last Trade            

Change in Points

Change in %      

Shanghai Composite

3,010.66

17.52

0.59

Hang Seng

16,541.42

148.58

0.91

Jakarta Composite

7,288.81

- 21.28

- 0.29

KLSE Composite

--

--

--

Nikkei 225

40,168.07

-594.66

-1.46

Straits Times

3,224.01

-27.70

-0.85

KOSPI Composite

2,745.82

-9.29    

-0.34

Taiwan Weighted

20,146.55

-53.57

-0.27
  RELATED NEWS >>
Most Viewed >>
April 24 , 2024
Mutual funds hold Rs 1.47 lakh crore worth of
April 22 , 2024
Investment bankers to receive hefty bonuses as
April 22 , 2024
FPIs mount bearish bets as risk aversion grows
April 22 , 2024
FPIs withdraw over Rs 5,200 crore in April so
EXPLORE
© CITRUS INTERACTIVE
Designed & Developed Accord Fintech Pvt. Ltd.