Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday announced an increase in the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on Futures and Options trade with a view to discouraging small investors from speculative trading in derivatives, which led to a sharp decline in the stock market.
The upper market capitalisation (mcap) threshold for midcap and smallcap stocks in the mutual fund (MF) industry's revised list of stocks, to be announced this month, is set to see the second-highest yearly rise in the past five years. The list was first announced in 2018, and it has been revised every six months since then. According to estimates released by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, the upper threshold for the midcap and smallcap universes could come in at Rs 66,700 crore and Rs 21,900 crore in the next list.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have withdrawn Rs 25,305 crore from domestic markets since September. FPIs were net sellers in the first two months of 2023, but from March to August, they purchased equities worth Rs 1.7 trillion. This selling trend has caused the National Stock Exchange Nifty Index to decline by 3.2 per cent from its September highs. FPI selling initially began in September as profit-taking but intensified due to rising US bond yields and uncertainty regarding the rate hike trajectory.
Against the backdrop of a nearly four-hour outage at the National Stock Exchange last month, an RBI article on Friday suggested allowing trading of benchmarks Nifty and Sensex on all stock exchanges. Trading was halted at the NSE for nearly four hours on February 24, reportedly due to telecom links failure leading to unavailability of the online risk management system of the NSE Clearing Ltd (NCL). NCL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NSE, is responsible for clearing and settlement of all trades executed on the exchange, according to the article.
'The investigation is at a very critical stage. We are not going to give every single document.'
Mini Sensex outdid mini Nifty in turnover on the first day of the New Year. It showed more turnover in terms of value than mini Nifty.
SEBI alleges Jane Street placed bets on the stock market falling and then acted in a way to make the market actually fall so it could win its bet.
The universe of stocks trading at a 12-month forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 50x or more has swelled by 2.5x to 104, indicating the growing froth in the market. In March 2023, the number of stocks with a P/E of 50x and 100x stood at 41 and 3, respectively, which has now grown to 104 and 9, according to an analysis by Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE).
Small and midcaps are leading the charge in the latest market rebound. Since November 21, when the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and the National Stock Exchange Nifty hit their recent lows and slipped into correction territory, the Nifty Smallcap 100 index has risen by 8 per cent, while the Nifty Midcap 100 has gained 5.7 per cent. Meanwhile, the Nifty 50 index has risen by 4.7 per cent during this period.
Mutual funds (MFs) have lined up information technology (IT) funds, indicating that technology stocks are back on fund managers' radar after a hiatus. Over the past 18 months, stock prices for companies in the software space have either corrected or remained subdued. Fund houses have launched five IT-based sectoral funds in the past three months, with three of them taking the passive route.
Notwithstanding concerns about lofty valuations, smallcaps recorded their most significant monthly gain in nearly three years in November. The National Stock Exchange Nifty Smallcap 100 finished the month with a 12 per cent gain, the most since February 2021 when it rose by 12.2 per cent. After declining by 4.1 per cent in the preceding month, the Nifty Midcap 100 rose by 10.4 per cent, the most since July 2022.
Actively managed mutual fund (MF) schemes had been at the receiving end over the past few years for their inability to beat their benchmarks. However, the slump in shares of Adani Group companies - two of which are part of the benchmark National Stock Exchange Nifty50 index - have helped them improve their performance vis--vis exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or index funds.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has withdrawn its decision to change the expiry day for Bank Nifty derivatives contracts from Thursday to Friday. The move follows a "request" from the BSE, which settles its Sensex and Bankex derivatives contracts on Friday. The proposed change in Bank Nifty settlement was scheduled to be effective from July 6 with the first weekly expiry on July 14.
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However, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank were the gainers.
In US, automatic spending cuts were triggered on Friday as lawmakers failed to agree on a resolution to prevent them, while China's manufacturing growth cooled in February to a four-month low.
Positive Asian cues aided risk-on sentiments.
The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange closed 86.55 points higher at 21,337.67 and the National Stock Exchange Nifty index closed at its highest closing levels in 2014, up 25.15 points at 6,338.95.
Reliance up 0.94%, Sun Pharma up 2.85, ICICI Bank up 0.76%, Bharti Airtel up 1.56% and Tata Steel up 2.2% were the top Sensex gainers today.
Equity funds' exceptional performance was obviously due to the stock market rally that was led by small and mid-cap stocks. Realty, banks and consumer goods companies emerged as top gainers.
National Stock Exchange decided to waive off transaction charges on trades done on its new mini-Nifty, till March 31.
After making its entry into the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share index Sensex in May
After pumping in close to $20 billion in the preceding five months, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have yanked out $220 million from domestic stocks this month. The selling by overseas funds has led to turbulence in the domestic markets, with benchmark indices swinging wildly recently.
Foreign institutional investors have been net investors to the tune of Rs 55,000 crore (Rs 550 billion) in equity markets this year so far. In contrast, domestic institutional investors have been net sellers over the past three months.
The recent blip in housing sales on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis should not worry investors as the long-term prospects of real estate stocks remain on a strong foundation, according to analysts. In the first half of the calendar year 2024 (H1CY24), realty stocks surged up to 104 per cent. This sharp run should be used to book partial profit in related stocks, suggested Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities.
Last Friday's tumble on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index falling nearly 400 points, is sure to have its repercussions on the already shaky Indian market. With both the benchmark indices, the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex and the National Stock Exchange Nifty having lost 5 per cent apiece last week, investors are already skittish.
With the Nifty50 surging past the 20,000 mark, the markets are experiencing a spate of initial public offerings (IPOs) with four issues set to raise over Rs 4,673 crore this week. Another quartet, cumulatively worth Rs 3,000 crore, is expected to launch next week. Companies like RR Kabel, SAMHI Hotels, Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services, and Yatra Online are set to hit the primary market this week, while Signature Global, Updater Services, Sai Silks (Kalamandir), and Vaibhav Jewellers are slated for next week. This flurry of activity is driven by multiple factors including buoyant market conditions, increased demand for IPOs, and specific rule on the disclosure of quarterly financials.
Among the Sensex firms, Bharat Electronics Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra, Adani Ports, HCL Technologies, Eternal, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever and UltraTech Cement were the gainers. Bajaj Finance, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Kotak Mahindra Bank, PowerGrid and Tata Steel were among the laggards.
Stocks in the automotive, financial, cement, metal, and hotel sectors are likely to benefit if the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes back to power for a third time. The key investment themes have been identified after analysing the Sankalp Patra - the party's manifesto for the next five years - released on Sunday.
SKS stock has been highly volatile, amid several controversies around the company and the sector.
Stock market regulator Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has widened the scope of index-based options by allowing exchanges to offer option contracts based on Sensex and Nifty with a tenure of up to five years.
Following a more than 15 per cent surge in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty 50 from this year's lows, the spread between the 10-year government security (G-sec) and the Nifty earnings has approached the danger zone of 2 percentage points (ppt). At present, the G-sec yield is roughly 7.09 per cent, while the Nifty earnings are 5.12 per cent. As a result, the spread works out to 1.98 ppt, ever so slightly below the danger mark of 2 ppt.
The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex crossed the 21,000 level in early morning trade for the first time on Tuesday on heavy buying by funds.
The MF investor count, which stood at around 38 million in April 2023, has surged by 19 per cent in the past year.
Notwithstanding the recent sharp decline in the stocks of public sector companies, analysts at Jefferies remain bullish on this segment. State Bank of India, Coal India, and NTPC are their top picks in this space, they said in a recent note. The public sector undertaking (PSU) or state-owned enterprise (SOE) index, with a 70-percentage-point outperformance versus the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 over the past 12 months, comes after a decade of underperformance before 2020.
According to data from BSE, the 4,357 companies available for trade had a combined mcap of around Rs 416 trillion on Tuesday against India's GDP at current prices of Rs 296.6 trillion in FY24.
