For the last week, benchmark indices fell up to half a percent, while a bigger fall was seen in the midcap index, down over 1 percent for the week as well.
Dominated by selloff in index heavyweights along with other weak domestic and global cues made benchmark indices trade plunge over 1 percent. The Sensex cracked over 500 points, while the Nifty managed to breach 10,200.
The closure of this level for the Nifty has happened for the first time in seven sessions, while the Sensex has posted the biggest one-day fall since February 6.
For the week, benchmark indices fell up to half a percent, while a bigger fall was seen in the midcap index, down over 1 percent for the week as well. Selling pressure intensified especially after a key ally of the ruling coalition decided to exit NDA.
The NSE Nifty was down 165 points or 1.59 percent to 10,195.20. About two shares declined for every share rising on the BSE. Midcaps also participated in the correction, with the Nifty midcap index falling around 1 percent.
In the upcoming week, apart from political stability cues in terms of no confidence motion in the Parliament for the ruling party, IPOs, FOMC meeting along with global and domestic macro data will keep the Street on its feet.
IPO
There is a flurry of initial public offerings (IPOs) that have hit the D-Street in the past five days and couple of more of them are lined up in the next week. The Street could wait for some cues among these robust IPOs.
Bandhan Bank’s initial public offer was subscribed 88 per cent on the second day of the three-day bidding. The IPO to raise Rs 4,473 crore received bids for 7,36,14,520 shares against the total issue size of 8,34,96,347 shares, data available with the NSE till 1700 hrs showed.
Meanwhile, Hindustan Aeronautics was subscribed 24 percent on the first day of the bidding process. The IPO received bids for 6,73,464 shares against the total issue size of 81,09,300 shares, data showed.
Two new IPOs will also be hitting the market going in the next week along with ongoing IPOs from Friday.
Sandhar Technologies will also be opening its IPO on Monday. HAL, Bandhan Bank, and Karda Construction will look to conclude their issues in the upcoming week.
Corporate Action
Several stocks are set to be in focus on the back of corporate-related developments such as dividend issue discussions as well as stock split, bonus issue and buyback, among others.
Scrips of Colgate Palmolive, Vedanta, HDFC, Sun TV, Coromandel, and Hindustan Zinc, among others will have their meetings to discuss their dividend issue.
The board of Lumax Technologies will be meeting to discuss a stock split along with India Nippon Electricals.
Laopala will be discussing its bonus issue on March 22, 2018.
Stocks in the News
Axis Bank: Reviewed and retained MCLR rates across all tenors. The one-year MCLR has been set at 8.4 percent.
Ramky Infra: The company has bagged an EPC order of Rs 939.4 crore From NHAI In Srinagar.
YES Bank: The company has said that Life Insurance Corporation has raised stake in firm By 2.03% To 9.62%.
Speciality Restaurants: Anjan Chatterjee to hand over operations to son, reports Mint.
Global Markets
The market on Monday will be looking for cues from mixed set of trends coming from the global markets.
Most Asian markets closed mixed on the last day of the trading week amid a backdrop of global trade-related developments and political news out of Washington.
European stocks finished the last session in the black, as investors tried to shake off concerns surrounding trade and political disruption in the White House.
A slight gain on Friday was not enough to stop stocks from posting a loss this week, weighed down by fears of a possible trade war and White House turmoil.
The S&P 500 notched a 1.2 percent loss for the week, despite a 0.2 percent gain on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average also fell 1.5 percent on the week as shares of Boeing dropped 6.8 percent on the trade tensions. The Dow closed 72.85 points higher on Friday at 24,946.51.
FOMC Meeting
The upcoming meeting will also keep the market on its feet as the US Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will be meeting to discuss on key interest rates.
The two-day FOMC meeting (March 20-21, 2018) will be Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s first in the position, and his forward-looking statement will be the focus of the event.
Powell is widely expected to continue with predecessor Janet Yellen’s plan for monetary normalization. Futures traders are pricing in a 94.4 percent likelihood of a rate increase next week, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
The Fed is expected to raise rates three times this year, but a significant jump in inflation in January increased chances of a fourth hike. February’s Consumer Price Index report on Tuesday, however, showed growth cooling to 0.2 percent, down from 0.5 percent in January.
Macro Cues
Among key global macro data at a global level is Japanese exports data, along with US crude imports, European PMI, along with Japanese consumer price inflation data.
Technical Factors
The Nifty on Friday made a strong bearish candle which closely resembles Bearish Belt Hold kind of pattern on the daily charts. The bias has now tilted in favour of the bears and a break below 200-day moving average in the coming week could extend the selling pressure.
The Nifty took support near its 200-DMA on last two occasions (7th and 8th March) and then bounced back. Now, a break below this level which is placed around 10,160 could push the index towards its next crucial support level placed at 10,000.
HDFC Securities highlighted that the near term trend of Nifty is down. The recent pullback rally seems to have completed, and a sharp downward reversal has witnessed from the highs. There is a possibility of further weakness down to the new swing low of 10,000 mark, by next week.
There is a possibility of a beginning of another minor upside bounce in Nifty, from near 10K mark, in coming weeks. Hence any upside bounces from near the supports, is going to be an opportunity to exit long trading positions
“Overall wave structure shows that the distribution phase can continue for few more sessions before the next leg down kicks in. However if bears manage to break the swing low of 10336 on closing basis, which means the Inside bar breaks out on the downside, then the index can resume the larger downtrend without further distribution. From short term perspective, 10141 & 10000 will be the targets on the downside,” Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Senior Technical Analyst, Sharekhan said in a statement.
White House Exits
The Street has been jittery following the mass high profile exits that the White House has been witnessing.
One of the most recent names to join the list of people to quit or fired by US President Donald Trump is Rex Tillerson, the then Secretary of State.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions also fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe two days before he was slated to retire — and become eligible for full pension benefits.
In a statement, Sessions said reports from both the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that McCabe had made “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media” and “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
McCabe, who had been the deputy director of the FBI, took over the agency on an interim basis after President Donald Trump fired James Comey last year, but stepped down in January.
Rupee
The Indian rupee on Friday ended at 64.94 a dollar, down 0.01% from its Thursday’s close of 64.93.
Reaction of IT stocks will be noted by the market, which in turn also affect the benchmarks.
“Trade data showing meek expansion in exports, and dollar eyeing new FED chairman’s first rate decision ensured that Rupee continue to be restricted to tight trading range.” Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said in a statement.
11 companies to declare earnings
Major names such as NMDC, NLC India, Ashoka Buildcon, DLF, and SBI Life Insurance Company, among others, will be declaring their results for December quarter.
The Street could await cues for a few important names in that list between March 17 and 23, 2018.
