Crypto carnage triggers outage on domestic bourses
Indian crypto investors make a killing on price arbitrage
Top bank stocks seen as biggest beneficiaries as Covid wave peaks
Analysts say Axis Bank OFS can be a good deal for retail investors
Hi there. Welcome to ETMarkets Morning, the show about money, business and markets. I am Sandeep Singh. Let’s start with a quick glance on the state of the markets.
Dalal Street looked indecisive this morning. Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded mildly higher ahead of the opening of Indian markets. In the rest of Asia, equity benchmarks fluctuated in Japan and Australia, and fell in South Korea. Overnight on Wall Street, the main indices closed lower after Federal Reserve minutes showed participants agreed the US economy remained far from the central bank’s goals. The Dow Jones industrial average fell half a per cent, the S&P 500 0.29% and the Nasdaq Composite 0.03%.
In currencies, the dollar held an advance.
Strong volatility swept over cryptocurrencies overnight, with Bitcoin posting a same-day plunge and rally of about 30%. It last traded at $35,500. Ether sank more than 40% before cutting that nearly in half. Dogecoin lost 45 per cent, before paring some losses.
Crude oil prices stabilised after slumping to the lowest in three weeks. WTI crude traded steady at $63.37 a barrel after falling 3.3%.
That said, here’s what else is making news.
Users of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, WazirX and CoinDCX, had a tough time on Wednesday due to outages as Bitcoin plunged more than 30%, wiping out over $500 billion from the coin’s peak market value. It was down 15% to $36,700 (Rs 26.8 lakh) at around 11 am in New York. It has erased all the gains it clocked up following Tesla’s February 8 announcement that it would use corporate cash to buy the asset and accept it as a form of payment for its vehicles.
But the good news is cryptocurrency investors In India have started making gains through price arbitrage on local and foreign platforms as prices turned volatile over the past few days. Trading volumes doubled at some exchanges as prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fluctuated. Bitcoin traded at $33,130, or Rs 24.26 lakh, on international exchanges at 6:30 pm on Wednesday. At the same time, prices on Indian exchanges rose to Rs 30.04 lakh.
The Federal Reserve may not be mulling of tapering right now, but may discss it ‘at some point’. That’s the signal from the minutes of Fed’s April meeting released overnight. They indicated that some officials may be open “at some point” to discussing adjustments to the pace of massive bond purchases if the US economy keeps on progressing rapidly.
Large banks are projected be the biggest beneficiaries as India passes the hump in the second Covid wave. Investors now appear to have a far better understanding of the loans landscape than they had during the 2020 shutdown. It has given them the confidence to look favourably at top banks, which they believe will escape with limited asset quality slippages. Analysts say stocks like HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, Axis, IndusInd and Bandhan can give 15-35% returns in a year.
Tata Motors is getting mixed views from brokerages after the company unexpectedly posted a consolidated loss of Rs 7,605 crore for the quarter ended March 31 mainly due to asset writedowns in subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover. Some brokerages raised target prices due to the rolling forward of valuations and as earnings were strong at an operating level, while others revised them downward.
And lastly, the Axis Bank OFS opens for retail investors today and analysts said it could be a good deal for retail investors. With the government selling the shares at a discount to the current price, analysts said there is scope to make money as the stock is expected to hit new highs in the coming months. The OFS, which opened on Wednesday for non-retail investors, was subscribed 2.6 times.
NOW Before I go, here is a look at some of the stocks buzzing this morning.
Sebi has imposed a fine of Rs 5.7 crore on Cairn India (now merged with Vedanta) and some of its erstwhile directors for irregularities in its buyback programme during the first half of 2014.
Promoter Hulst BV sold 31 lakh shares of information technology solutions company Coforge on Wednesday at an average price of Rs 3,250.58 per share.
Goldman Sachs’ private equity division has taken a significant minority stake in Aragen Life Sciences, formerly GVK Biosciences, for an undisclosed sum.
Adani Green Energy is to acquire SoftBank-promoted SB Energy’s 5GW renewable power portfolio in India for a fully completed enterprise value of $3.5 billion.
Do also check out over two dozen stock recommendations for today’s trade from top analysts on ETMarkets.com.
That’s it for now. Stay put with us for all the market news through the day. Happy investing!
