Here’s breaking down the pre-market actions:
STATE OF THE MARKETS
SGX Nifty signals gap-down start
Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 209.50 points, or 1.37 per cent, lower at 15,085.50 in signs that Dalal Street was headed for a gap-down start on Thursday.
Tech View: Nifty support at 15,000
Nifty50 took out its 13-day and 20-day moving averages on Wednesday and formed a long bullish candle on the daily chart. This was the third day when the index formed higher highs and lows. Analysts said support for the index has shifted higher, and as long Nifty stays above 15,000, the bias may remain positive.
Asian shares tank up to 1.6% in early trade
The creep up in benchmark yields weighed on Asian stocks, as wary investors recall last week’s sell-off in government bonds that caused yields to spike, spooking equity markets and causing shares to tumble. Japan’s Nikkei tanked 1.57 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.33 per cent while Korea’s Kospi fell 0.97 per cent. China’s Shanghai Composite also fell 1.18 per cent.
US stocks settled lower
Wall Street fell on Wednesday as investors sold off technology stocks, while the dollar rose even as US jobs data disappointed investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 119.98 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 31,271.54, the S&P 500 lost 50.51 points, or 1.31 per cent, to 3,819.78 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 361.04 points, or 2.7 per cent, to 12,997.75.
MTAR IPO subscribed 3.68 times on Day 1
The Rs 597-crore initial public offering of MTAR Technologies was subscribed 3.68 times on Wednesday, the first day of the bidding process, on overwhelming support from retail investors. The IPO has received bids for 2.67 crore equity shares against an offer size of 72.6 lakh equity stocks, translating into a subscription of 3.68 times, data available on the exchanges till 5 pm showed
FIIs buy Rs 2,089 crore worth stocks
Net-net, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were buyers of domestic stocks to the tune of Rs 2,088.70 crore, data available with NSE suggested. DIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 392.91 crore, data suggests.
MONEY MARKETS
Rupee: The rupee on Wednesday surged by 65 paise — its biggest single day spike since September 2020 — to end at 72.72 against the US dollar on the back of weakness in the American dollar and rise in risk appetite in the global markets.
10-year bonds: India 10-year bond yield rose 0.03 per cent to 6.23 after trading in 6.21-6.24 range.
Call rates: The overnight call money rate weighted average stood at 3.21 per cent, according to RBI data. It moved in a range of 1.90-3.50 per cent.
Data/events to watch
- US Total Vehicle Sales Feb (05:30 am)
- Australia Balance of Trade Jan (06:00 am)
- Euro Area Construction PMI Feb (02:00 pm)
- UK New Car Sales YoY Feb (02:30 pm)
- UK Construction PMI Feb (03:00 pm)
- Euro Area Unemployment Rate Jan (03:30 pm)
- US Jobless Claims 4-week Average Feb/27 (07:00 pm)
- US Initial Jobless Claims 27/Feb (07:00 pm)
- US Fed Chair Powell Speech (10:35 pm)
- China National Committee of the CPPCC
- OPEC+ Meeting
MACROS
India’s billion dollar m-cap firms swell… The record-breaking market rally has pushed more Indian companies into the billion-dollar market cap club. The number of domestic companies whose market value has exceeded a billion dollars has touched an all-time high of 335, exceeding that of countries like Germany, France, Canada or South Korea. Currently, India is ranked fifth and is inching towards the fourth position which is currently held by the United Kingdom with 351 companies. India is the second-best performer among the top 20 countries so far in 2021 after Hong Kong, and has added $246 billion in market capitalisaion, taking its total market capitalisation to $2.77 trillion. More than two dozen companies including Hindustan Copper, Bajaj Electricals, IIFL Finance, Shriram City, BASF, NBCC, India Energy Exchange, IDFC along with newly-listed Indian Railway Finance Corporation and Indigo Paints have joined India’s billion-dollar market cap club in the last two months due to the surge in the stock market.
Flipkart, Nabard back Tata’s NUE plan… Walmart-backed Flipkart, Mastercard, PayU and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) are together buying a 30% stake in Ferbine, the Tata promoted company that plans to set up a national payments infrastructure rivalling National Payments Corp of India (NPCI), said three people familiar with the matter.
Govt to hold 26% in new DFI…. The government will hold at least 26% stake in the proposed development financial institution (DFI) that will be set up with authorised share capital of ₹1 lakh crore, officials aware of the development told ET. The government is likely to have full ownership of the DFI to start with but over time may offer up to 74% stake to domestic and foreign financial institutions, multilateral lenders and sovereign wealth funds.
Services sector grows fastest in Feb… A surge in new orders and stronger demand led to expansion in India’s service providers’ business activity at the fastest rate in a year in February, a private survey said Wednesday. The India Services Business Activity Index rose to 55.3 in February from 52.8 in January. A figure above 50 shows expansion. But employment continued to fall for the third month in a row. ›
Sebi show-cause notice to Templeton… Sebi has issued show-cause notices to Franklin Templeton Asset Management Company (AMC), trustees and key managerial personnel based on findings of a forensic audit report, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Sebi had ordered the audit after the fund house wound up six debt mutual fund schemes in April last year. In the show-cause notices to Franklin Templeton AMC and its trustees, the regulator alleged code of conduct violations, said the people cited above. It asked why action should not be taken against them for not discharging their fiduciary responsibilities toward investors and for lapses in the risk-management process.
Record overseas bond raising by India Inc… The Adani Group, Vedanta and Bharti Airtel are at the vanguard of overseas bond sales lately by Indian companies, which together mobilised record funds offshore in the first two months of this year to underscore the pressing need for expansion capital that would undergird the V-shaped recovery underway. At nearly $9 billion, the funds garnered dwarfed overseas fundraising efforts in the same period since 1995, show data from Dealogic, an analytics firm based out of Hong Kong. The quantum of bond sales, coinciding with a global effort to clamber out of the Covid sinkhole, underscores the undiminished allure of overseas markets for fundraising despite record low interest rates at home.
