INDICES TRADE WITH TINY CUTS; IT SHARES DECLINE

The domestic equity indices traded near the flatline with some negative bias in early afernoon trade. The Nifty traded near the 17,350 mark after hitting the day`s high of 17,428.05 in early trade. IT index witnessed profit booking after increasing in the past two trading sessions.

At 12:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 25.78 points or 0.04% to 58,965.74. The Nifty 50 index shed 9.75 points or 0.06% to 17,350.

The broader market outperformed the headline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index added 0.16% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index gained 1.05%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 2,563 shares rose and 885 shares fell. A total of 137 shares were unchanged.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) monetary policy meeting begins today. The outcome of the meeting will be announced on April 6. The RBI`s monetary policy committee (MPC) may reportedly increase the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) in order to combat rising inflation.

The gross GST revenue collected in March 2023 is Rs. 1,60,122 crore. The total gross collection for 2022-23 stands at Rs 18.10 lakh crore. The gross revenues in 2022-23 were 22% higher than that last year. This was the fourth time in the current financial year that the gross GST collection has crossed Rs 1.5 lakh crore, marking the second-highest collection ever.

India Manufacturing PMI:

The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers` Index (PMI) rose from 55.3 in February to 56.4 in March, signalling the strongest improvement in operating conditions in 2023 so far. That said the PMI average for the final fiscal quarter (55.7) came in below that recorded in the prior period (56.3 in Q3).

Pollyanna De Lima, Economics Associate Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: "Underlying demand for Indian goods remained strong in March, underscored by the quickest upturn in factory orders for three months. Hence, production continued to expand at a robust clip and firms stepped up their stock-building efforts.

"Companies reported abundant capacity among themselves and their suppliers. Pending workloads expanded only marginally in March, hindering job creation. As for supply chains, improved availability of raw materials among vendors resulted in shorter delivery times and retreating price pressures. Overall, input costs rose at the second-slowest rate since September 2020.

"Firms tried to benefit as much as possible from this moderation in inflation by acquiring additional raw materials and semi-finished items. This contributed to one of the strongest increases in input inventories in over 18 years of data collection.

"Although manufacturers were upbeat towards future new orders, they somewhat doubted that inflation would continue to recede. Such worries restricted optimism towards output prospects."

Derivatives:

The NSE`s India VIX, a gauge of the market`s expectation of volatility over the near term, rose 0.34% to 12.98. The Nifty 27 April 2023 futures were trading at 17,428, at a premium of 78 points as compared with the spot at 17,350.

The Nifty option chain for the 27 April 2023 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 33.4 lakh contracts at the 18,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 62.9 lakh contracts were seen at 17,000 strike price.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index declined 0.63% to 28,516.65. The index witnessed profit booking after sliding 3.6% in two trading sessions.

Persistent Systems (down 2.53%), Infosys (down 1.18%), LTI Mindtree (down 0.78%), Tech Mahindra (down 0.64%), Tata Consultancy Services (down 0.59%) and Mphasis (down 0.49%), Coforge (down 0.36%) declined.

On the other hand, L&T Technology Services (up 0.81%), HCL Technologies (up 0.8%) and Wipro (up 0.57%) edged higher.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) rose 0.75% after the company said it has achieved the best ever annual production during the financial year 2022-23 ending on 31 March 2023. During the period, SAIL recorded 19.409 million tonnes (MT) of hot metal and 18.289 MT crude steel production, a growth of 3.6% and 5.3% respectively over the previous best.

Maruti Suzuki India advanced 2.49%. The car major on Monday announced that its total production skid 5.66% to 1,54,148 units in March 2023 compared with 1,63,392 units recorded in March 2022. Sequentially, the company`s total production declined 3.58% as against 1,59,873 units produced in February 2023.

Meanwhile, the auto maker said that its total sales declined 0.19% to 170,071 units in March 2023 compared with 170,395 units in March 2022. Further, the car maker announced increase in prices across models. An estimated weighted average of increase across models stands at around 0.8% and is calculated using ex showroom prices of models in Delhi. This is effective from 1 April 2023, said the company.

Hindustan Aeronautics added 0.12%. The company said that it has recorded highest-ever revenue from operations of Rs 26,500 crore (provisional and unaudited) in FY23 as against Rs 24,620 crore in FY22, registering a growth of 7.6%. The order book of the company stood at around Rs 82,000 crore at the end of March 2023, after liquidation of the supplies during 2022-23.

APL Apollo Tubes fell 1.50%. The company announced that it had registered sales volume of 649,726 ton in Q4 FY23, up by 18% from 551,723 ton in Q4 FY22. On a sequential basis, the company`s sales volume has risen by 7%. Sales volume in Q3 FY23 stood at 605,049 ton. For FY23, the company reported sales volume of 2,279,846 ton compared to 1,754,963 ton in FY22, up 30% YoY.

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