Bears to hold sway; A 70-point gap-down opening seen for Nifty

Indian markets continue to suffer under bears as global cues point another bleak day. Tracking the overnight US markets and other Asian markets, the SGX Nifty is ruling at 14,510 - 70 points lower than Nifty March futures close of 14,577.

Asia-Pacific markets in Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong are down between 0.2 per cent and 1.3 per cent.

Rising US yields amid inflation concerns continue to haunt the US stocks and global markets. The S&P 500 Index sank 1.5 per cent to 3,915.50; the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 0.5 per cent to 32,862.37; and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slumped 3 per cent to 13,116.17.

Analysts expect the market to witness pressure during the short-term.

High level of volatility in the Indian stock market is expected amidst the resurgence of Covid, said Mohit Ralhan, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, TIW Private Equity. "The rise in the US Bond yields has remained a big area of concern and the investors are cautious given the past experience of “Taper tantrum”. But, the structural trend of strong economic recovery and growth remains intact, which is the most crucial parameter for a long-term investor," he added.

Market may remain dull over in the near term but once the Q4 earning previews start flowing in there would be renewed interest by market participants, said Hemang Jani, Head Equity Strategy, Broking & Distribution, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

According to experts, the selling has percolated to large-cap stocks.

Sameet Chavan, Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel Broking, said: Since last few days, key indices were range bound but if we meticulously observe the price action of individual stocks (especially from the F&O universe), some sort of distribution was clearly visible. Last two day’s decline in Nifty and other key indices was the outcome of the overall selling "

Stocks to Watch

Easy Trip Planners : Shares of Easy Trip Planners will be listed today at the bourses. The ₹510-crore public issue of Easy Trip Planners saw a strong response from investors by subscribing 159.33 times. The portion reserved for HNIs witnessed a whopping 382 times subscription while qualified institutional buyers and retail investors portion received bids for 77.53 times and 70.40 times, respectively. The company had set a price band of ₹186-187 a share for the IPO. Ahead of the issue, the online travel company had raised about ₹229 crore from anchor investors. The company’s IPO was entirely an offer for sale by its founders.

Automobile stocks, especially trucks and passenger vehicle manufacturers, will remain in focus, on the back of Vehicle Scrappage Policy, which was unveiled in Lok Sabha by Nitin Gadkari, The Road Transport, Highways and MSMEs Minister,

Policy expected to be a ‘win-win’ for all as it helps reduce India’s oil import bills by improving fuel efficiency, reduce environmental pollution and improve road and vehicular safety by getting rid of old and defective vehicles, boost the availability of low-cost raw materials like plastic, steel, aluminium, steel, rubber, electronics, etc. for the OEMs. Potential to increase automobile industry’s turnover to ₹10 lakh crore from the existing ₹4.5 lakh crore, said CARE Ratings.

Insurance companies will see some buying on Friday as Rajya Sabha passed a Bill to raise FDI limit in insurance sector to 74 per cent. Focus will be on HDFC Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, GIC, SBI Life Insurance and ICICI Prudential LIC.

Indo Count Industries Ltd has announced that the Project Management Committee of the Board of Directors has approved expansion of its bed linen capacity by nearly 20 per cent from its existing annual capacity of 90 million meters to 108 mm by debottlenecking and balancing its facilities. Further, it proposes to make a brownfield investment for adding commensurate cut & sew facilities and for enhancing the capacity for Top of the Bed (TOB) products. This will entail a capex of about ₹150 crore.

GAIL India and Ranchi Municipal Corporation have signed concession agreement for setting up compressed biogas plant in Ranchi.

Vaibhav Global : The Shop TJC Limited, UK, a step-down subsidiary of the Vaibhav Global, has acquired E-retailer Shop LC GmbH, Germany (100 per cent subsidiary). The object of the company is to expand business in Germany by selling the products to the retail consumers via television and e-commerce websites, said Vaibhav Global in its BSE filing.

Hathway Cable & Datacom has entered into an agreement for disposing its entire 50 per cent i.e. 5,000 equity shares having face value of ₹10 each of Net 9 Online Hathway, a joint venture company, on March 18. The company has received a consideration of ₹99 lakh after selling stake in the joint venture company.

IPO Corner:

Nazara Technologies : Today is the last day for the IPO. The ₹583-crore IPO, which opened on Wednesday, has been subscribed over 10.55 times on Day 2. Nazara's public issue is offer-for-sale, which will see sale of 52,94,392 equity shares by the promoters and existing shareholders. Retail investors portion has been subscribed 44.77 times while non-institutional investors received bids for 7.73 times and QIBs 72 per cent. The price band of the issue is ₹1,100-1,101.

The IPO of Suryoday Small Finance Bank (SSFB) will also close on Friday. The IPO was subscribed 1.01 times. The price band of the offer has been fixed at ₹303 to ₹305 per equity share. On Tuesday, SSFB raised Rs 170 crore through by allotting shares to 13 anchor investors at Rs 305 a share. Retail investors portion got two times while NIIs and QIBs have remained lukewarm to SSFB public issue.

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