Barometers trade with moderate losses; European mkt opens higher

The domestic equity benchmark traded with modest losses in afternoon trade. The Nifty traded below the 22,000 level. Barring FMCG index all the indices on the NSE were in red.

At 13:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 454.09 points or 0.62% to 72,642.78. The Nifty 50 index slipped 158.75 points or 0.71% to 21,989.25.

The broader market underperformed the key indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index lost 1.13% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index shed 0.55%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 1,379 shares rose and 2,396 shares fell. A total of 103 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

Oil companies have trimmed petrol and diesel prices by Rs 2 per litre, effective from 6 a.m. on March 15, said Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. Reduction in petrol and diesel prices will boost consumer spending and reduce operating costs for over 58 lakh heavy goods vehicles running on diesel, six crore cars and 27 crore two-wheelers.

Gainers & Losers:

UPL (up 2.42%), ITC (up 2.03%), Bharti Airtel (up 1.20%) Bajaj Finance (up 1.20%) and HDFC Life Insurance Company (up 1.12%) were major Nifty gainers.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) (down 7.41%), Coal India (down 4.65%), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (down 4.58%) Hero Motocorp (down 3.55%) and Mahindra & Mahindra (down 3.21%) were major Nifty losers.

Stocks in Spotlight:

RailTel Corporation of India gained 3.41% after the company announced that it has received the work order amounting to Rs 113.46 crore from Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC).

JSW Energy rallied 3.74% after JSW Neo Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of JSW Energy received a letter of intent (LoI) for grid connected solar capacity of 300 MW from Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam (GUVNL).

NHPC declined 3.12%. The company said that it has received letter of intent by Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam (GUVNL) for a 200 megawatt (MW) solar power project at the 1125 MW Gujarat State Electricity Corporation (GSECL�s) renewable energy (RE) Park in Khavda, Gujarat.

Shakti Pumps (India) was locked in 5% after the company announced that it has received Letter of Award from Maharashtra Energy Department Agency (MEDA) for a project worth Rs 93 crore.

Ahluwalia Contracts (India) rose 0.5%. The civil construction company announced that it has secured an order worth Rs 364 crore from Government of Assam (chief engineer, PWD building) to build open stadium.

Biocon declined 5.05% after the company said that its chief financial officer (CFO), Indranil Sen has resigned with effect from 15 March 2024.

CFF Fluid Control surged 8.07% and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders rallied 2.13% after the company informed that it has received the biennial rate contract from Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders worth approximately Rs 46.46 crore.

Global Markets:

European stocks advanced while most of the Asian stocks declined on Friday tracking overnight losses on Wall Street after a hot US inflation report.

China�s central bank left a key lending rate unchanged for a seventh month. The People�s Bank of China kept the interest rate on its one-year medium-term lending facility loans at 2.50%.

U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday after higher-than-estimated US producer prices in February suggested that the US Federal Reserve could reduce the number of rate cuts this year.

US producer price index for final demand rose 0.6% last month after advancing by an unrevised 0.3% in January. The gauge rose 1.6% from a year earlier, the largest annual advance since September. US retail sales rose 0.6% last month. Data for January was revised lower to show sales tumbling 1.1% instead of the previously reported 0.8%, while sales in December were also downgraded.

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