Both the benchmark indices, Sensex and the Nifty finally closed the day with marginal losses. On the sectoral front, performance was largely skewed to the negative.
A rollercoaster ride for Indian market but towards the close of the sessions bears managed to regain control and pushed the indices firmly in red on Thursday as investors across the globe remained cautious the day before tariffs from the U.S. and China are due to be implemented.
Concerns over a trade dispute between the U.S. and China have weighed on market sentiment in the lead-up to tariffs both countries say will take effect on July 6, CNBC said in a report.
“Stock markets in India traded on a lackluster note and witnessed selling pressure as investors adopted a note of caution post-Wednesday’s rally and ahead of a looming trade tariff deadline between the United States and China,” Abhijeet Dey, Senior Fund Manager-Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund told Moneycontrol.
“A looming 6 July 2018 deadline is set to see the US impose a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods on more than 800 product categories. If implemented, China is likely to retaliate with duties of the same value on US products,” he said.
Both the benchmark indices, Sensex and the Nifty finally closed the day with marginal losses. On the sectoral front, performance was largely skewed to the negative.
Sectorally, the S&P BSE FMCG index rose 1.03 percent, followed by the S&P BSE Auto index closed 0.15 percent high and the S&P BSE Banking index which was up 0.14 percent.
On the losing front, the S&P BSE Consumer Durable index slipped 2.7 percent, followed by the S&P BSE Realty index which dropped 1.7 percent, and the S&P BSE IT index was down 1.6 percent.
Top Sensex gainers include Yes Bank, ITC, Asian Paints, Coal India, M&M, and Maruti Suzuki.
Top Sensex losers include names like Infosys, Vedanta, Tata Steel, RIL, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, and Bharti Airtel.
Reliance Industries closed lower by over 2 percent even though RIL’s chairman Mukesh Ambani said that the company plans to more than double its revenues by 2025 as contributions from the retail and telecom arms match that of the bellwether hydrocarbon business. He was addressing the company’s shareholders at its 41st Annual General Meeting.
Stocks in news:
Idea Cellular share fell 1.2 percent and Bharti Airtel declined nearly 1 percent after Mukesh Ambani launched a new plan for Reliance Jio at the company’s 41st AGM. RIL closed 2.5% lower post AGM.
Hathway Cable shares fell 15 percent and Den Networks lost 10 percent after the Mukesh Ambani launched fiber broadband service which will be called JioGigaFiber. Siti Network lost 1.6 percent while Dish TV rose marginally to close 0.49 percent.
Infosys share price lost 4.4 percent intraday Thursday ahead of the announcement of its June quarter earnings next week. Infosys will announce its March quarter results on July 13 after the TCS’ earnings which will be declared on July 10. However, the IT major did unveil a new partnership with Siemens PLM Software to develop applications and services for MindSphere, the open cloud-based IoT operating system from Siemens.
Share prices of all listed liquor companies fell up to 6 percent on Thursday after the Karnataka government increased additional excise duty on liquor. United Spirits share price lost 5.6 percent, GM Breweries dropped 3.06 percent, United Breweries 2.9 percent while Pincon Spirit was locked at 5 percent upper circuit after the news.
ICICI Securities share price corrected for the fourth consecutive session, falling 3.49 percent after SEBI found ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company guilty of helping I-Sec’s IPO get subscribed. It hit a fresh 52-week low of Rs292.
Yes Bank has received the final regulatory approval from the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to commence its mutual fund business. The stock rose 3.9%. In a separate news, YES Bank, received credit rating upgrades from CARE Ratings for multiple instruments to ‘AAA’.
In other news:
Asian stocks ended the session lower, with China’s Shanghai Composite falling nearly a percent as investors remained cautious ahead of implementation of tariffs from the US and China on July 6.
Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.78 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.21 percent while South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.35 percent.
However, European markets were trading sharply higher following the jump in auto stocks. Germany’s DAX was up 1.2 percent and France’s CAC up 0.92 percent while Britain’s FTSE gained 0.5 percent at the time of writing this article.
