Thursday 25 August 2016

Nifty holds 8650; IT stocks weak, FMCG & pharma stocks up

While there are 10 more days to go before Urjit Patel is passed on the baton at Reserve Bank of India by Raghuram Rajan, the government is building a case in favour of a rate cut arguing the cost of credit in the country is very high. 

At an event a few days ago, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Nitin Gadkari said cost of funding was very high in India and that he hoped for a 2 percent rate from the Reserve Bank, a call that was re-iterated today by Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Leading economists, however, believe this is just wishful thinking as the Ministry of Finance and RBI have already agreed on an inflation target and unless inflation comes off, there is no room for a rate cut.

The market is still sluggish as the Sensex is up 68.99 points or 0.2 percent at 28128.93. The Nifty is up 23.90 points or 0.3 percent at 8674.20. About 1384 shares have advanced, 816 shares declined, and 156 shares are unchanged. 

ITC, Cipla, Axis Bank, BHEL and Dr Reddy's Labs are gainers in the Sensex while Adani Ports, Wipro, Infosys, TCS and NTPC are losers in the Sensex. 

Crude prices dipped on Thursday as brimming US and Asian fuel inventories returned investor attention to a large global supply overhang, cutting short a price-rally and restricting Brent crude futures to below the USD 50 a barrel mark. 

Traders said price falls this week had truncated a rally that pushed crude up by more than 20 percent earlier in August on talk of a potential deal by oil producers to freeze output in an effort to rein in oversupply.

 Hopes of a deal were dampened by record output from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and little prospect of voluntary restrictions.

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