Markets reacted to innumerable news flows on Thursday with the Nifty opening tad lower in reaction to Wednesday post-market-hours data flow, on macro-economic statistics and India’s largest IT services player
TCS announcing fourth quarter results. While inflation print for both US and
India were better than expected, TCS disappointed the street with negative commentary on challenges in the North American markets which are expected to linger in the near term hinting at an uncertain outlook for FY24.
Alongside,
FOMC latest meeting minutes prompted towards a recession this year owing to the ongoing banking crisis. “Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” the meeting summary said.
Nifty traded lower until noon and marked the low point of the day at 17,731. Post which, the index leaped nearly 100 points in remaining half of the session in response to AMFI’s strong mutual funds data for March and SIAM’s auto sales numbers for March and financial year 2023. Though Nifty ended the day tad higher with modest 15 points gain, it marked the ninth consecutive day of rise. The last instance of the Nifty ending higher was from 30th September to 14th October 2020 for ten sessions. The Nifty today touched a 7-week high.
A spike in COVID cases with over 10,000 new infections was a sentiment negative blow, while Commerce Ministry announcement nearly an hour before the market close on India exceeding export target of $750 billion in FY23, uplifted the market mood.
Among all indices, the banking pack maintained its buoyancy with Nifty PSU bank gaining 1.45 percent, followed by Nifty Realty. It is noteworthy that the Nifty Realty index has not witnessed a single session of fall in trade since the MPC’s meeting previous week to keep repo rate unchanged. The auto index ended less than half percent higher in reaction to SIAM’s March data sales which depict exports as a concern for the auto sector and entry-level segment continuing its suffering.
Nifty IT was the biggest loser of the day descending 2.2 percent with all 10 stocks ending in red. 4 of these IT stocks were among the top 5 Nifty 50 losers for the day. TCS witnessed selling pressure marking a humble fall of 1.53 percent. TCS’s outgoing CEO, Rajesh Gopinathan, in an interaction with CNBC-TV18 today morning said its constant currency growth of 0.6 percent was lower than expected 1.5 to 2 percent.
The NSE stays shut tomorrow on account of Ambedkar Jayanati, but investors shall wait for reaction on Monday, for
Infosys results to be announced today post market closing.
