Here’s breaking-down the pre-market actions.
STATE OF THE MARKETS
SGX Nifty signals positive start
Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 8 points, or 0.05 per cent, higher at 15,348 in signs that Dalal Street was headed for a flat to positive start on Tuesday.
Tech view: This Nifty rally has legs
Nifty50 on Monday capitalised on a gap-up start and ended above the 15,300 mark for the first time. Analysts said the opening upside gap remained unfilled and the index has seen an upside breakout above the 15,255 level. They are largely positive on the index now, but feel profit booking around the 15,400-475 levels is a possibility.
Asian markets gain in early trade
Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.25 per cent to 30,460.16. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 1.64 per cent to 30,668.39. Korea’s Kospi added 0.6 per cent to 3,165.06 . Financial markets in China and Taiwan are closed on Tuesday for public holidays.
rises as deep freeze shuts US oil wells
Oil prices rose on Tuesday as a cold front shut wells and refineries in Texas, the biggest crude producing state in the United States, the world’s biggest oil producer. Brent crude was up 11 cents, or 0.2 per cent, at $63.41 a barrel, after rising to its highest since January 2020 in the previous session.
US markets closed on account of President Day
US market was closed on Monday on account of President’s Day. On Friday, Dow rose 27.7 points, or 0.09 per cent, to 31,458.4, the S&P500 index gained 18.45 points, or 0.47 per cent, to 3,934.83 and the Nasdaq added 69.70 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 14,095.47.
RailTel IPO opens today
Central Public Sector Enterprise, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd’s initial public offering (IPO) will open on February 16, and end on February 18. The price band of the offer has been fixed at Rs 93 to Rs 94 per equity share of face value of Rs 10 each.
Nureca IPO subscribed 5.7 times on Day 1
The initial public offer of Nureca, which is into the business of home healthcare and wellness products, was subscribed 5.73 times on the first day of subscription on Monday. The Rs 100 crore-public issue received bids for 80,33,305 shares against 14,01,595 shares on offer, as per data available with the NSE.
FIIs buy Rs 1,234 crore worth stocks
Net-net, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were buyers of domestic stocks to the tune of Rs 1,234.15 crore, data available with NSE suggested. DIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 1,048.55 crore, data suggests.
MONEY MARKETS
Rupee: The rupee on Monday rose by 7 paise to settle at nearly one-year high of 72.68 against the US dollar supported by positive macroeconomic data, weak dollar and a rally in domestic equities.
10-year bonds: India 10-year bond yield rose 0.53 per cent to 6.02 after trading in 6-6.02 range.
DATA/EVENTS TO WATCH
- Australia RBA Meeting Minutes (06:00 am)
- Euro Area Employment Change YoY Prel Q4 (03:30 pm)
- Euro Area GDP Growth Rate QoQ 2nd Est Q4 (03:30 pm)
MACROS
RBI goes for another Twist… North Block’s money manager would persist with its efforts to lift India’s sagging short-term rates toward keenly tracked policy gauges, it was evident on Monday, with the latest tranche of ‘Operation Twist’ capping off an eventful trading session that saw the rupee vault to its highest in about a year. The central bank said that it will buy Rs 10,000 crore worth of long-term government bonds and sell a similar quantity of shorter duration papers.
Wholesale inflation firms up… India’s wholesale inflation firmed to 2.03% in January from 1.22% in December, led by manufactured items, official data showed. It was 3.52% in January last year. Inflation in manufactured items was 5.13%, up from 4.24% in December. Food inflation was -2.24% in January. Inflation in vegetables and potatoes was -20.82% and -22.04%, respectively, data released by the commerce and industry ministry showed
Exports grew in Jan… India’s merchandise exports rose for the second consecutive month in January and at a faster pace than seen in preliminary estimates released earlier this month, official data released Monday showed. In an indicator of the recovery in domestic demand, imports increased and the country’s trade deficit narrowed to $14.54 billion. The trade gap was $15.3 billion in January 2020 and 15.44 billion in December.
Nasscom projects 2.3% revenue growth for IT… The National Association of Software and Service Companies said India’s technology industry is pegged to report revenue of $194 billion in FY21, a growth of 2.3% year-on-year. The three key areas that Indian technology companies will focus on are artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and Internet of Things, according to Nasscom.
Loan recovery improves for banks, NBFCs… The grim shadow of Covid is fading fast — and that’s evident in not just the dashboards on caseloads and fatalities. Bankers and non-bank lenders lately are able to recover the bulk of the retail advances they made, and the crème-de-la-crème of high-street banking reported collection efficiencies north of 95% since the economy began opening up.
I-T opens old tax evasion cases… Suddenly, there has been a surge in reopening of returns of small-time tax evaders with income tax authorities deploying investigation units to search and survey suspect cases of tax evasion of up to Rs 50 lakh. Cases are being reopened for assessment years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 as no action will be possible beyond March 31 for these three years. Changes proposed in the budget confined reopening of tax assessment to three years from the earlier six years.
EPFO subscribers face reduced returns… The 60 million subscribers of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation could face a further reduction on their returns in the current year because of heavy withdrawals and lower contributions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Declining interest rates over the past few years have also impacted earnings of the fund, which invests most of its corpus in government securities. The fund declared an interest rate of 8.5% for FY20, the lowest in seven years, and 8.65% in FY19.
Future nearly had a deal with Amazon-backed PE… As early as June 30 last year, Amazon-backed private equity firm Samara Capital had signed a non-binding term sheet with Future Retail that entailed a Rs 7,000 crore investment, reveal documents and correspondence between both sides. This was two months prior to Future Group announcing its Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance Retail Ventures at the end of August.
