The Central government is stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea as far as the runaway fuel prices are concerned.
RBI's interest rate decision, macroeconomic data, global trends and trading activity of foreign investors are the crucial factors to drive equity markets in a holiday-shortened week ahead, analysts said. Markets would remain closed on Monday for Gandhi Jayanti. "While global cues will continue to dictate trends in local markets, focus will shift to RBI's monetary policy announcement on Friday. "Although the market is expecting a status quo on interest rates, global concerns like rising US dollar index and bond yields coupled with surging crude oil prices continue to weigh on investors' minds.
The NSE Nifty after shuttling between 10,397.60 and 10,279.35 points, ended 47 points, or 0.45 per cent lower at 10,301.05.
Titan, Nestle, Hindustan Unilever, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, ITC, Zomato and Bajaj Finserv were also among the laggards. Adani Ports, IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors and HDFC Bank were among the major gainers.
EIA expects the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil to average about $100 per barrel in 2012.
India is estimated to spend $1.36 billion more a year for every one dollar a barrel increase in crude oil prices, says Subhayan Chakraborty.
Government-controlled oil-marketing companies (OMCs) have held back petrol and diesel price revisions for a week and are expected to continue doing so, ostensibly owing to political reasons. It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise fuel prices for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far.
This is being done to meet eventualities of supplies being disrupted in case of war in Iraq
Among Sensex firms, Tata Consultancy Services, Adani Ports, Hindustan Unilever, Nestle, Bajaj Finserv and NTPC were the laggards. IndusInd Bank, Titan, Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti were among the biggest gainers.
Rising crude oil prices and muted passenger traffic in the July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24) have raised concerns about the profitability of listed aviation players. These two concerns have caused the stock of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), the largest player in the sector, to slip by 11 per cent since its highs at the end of July. Nuvama Research expects yields to cool down in the near term due to seasonality, rising crude oil prices, and higher capacity.
India's crude oil import bill almost doubled between April and August this financial year compared with the same period a year ago as average oil prices rose 75 per cent over the year-ago period.
The prospect of protracted uncertainties in the global economic landscape not only pose a risk for India's growth outlook in 2025-26, but are also likely to dent the private sector's capital raising and investment plans, the finance ministry averred on Tuesday, cautioning the country's corporates that the era of 'easy pickings' was over.
Brent crude oil prices have risen to about $116 a barrel from about $103 a barrel on July 1.
India and the US had on July 17 signed a preliminary agreement for cooperating on emergency crude oil reserves, including the possibility of India storing oil in the US emergency stockpile.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's top oil firm, has bought as much as 3 million barrels of crude oil that Russia had offered at steep discount to prevailing international rates, sources said. The purchase, made through a trader, is the first since Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine that brought international pressure for isolating Putin administration. Sources aware of the matter said IOC bought Urals crude for May delivery at a discount of $20-25 a barrel to dated Brent.
State-owned oil companies are all set to hike petrol prices by around Rs 3 per litre which will be effective from midnight on Friday.
The price of oil fell in markets around the world on Thursday, from New York to London and Tokyo, as the long-awaited US-led war against Iraq began .
However, WPI inflation remained in double digit for the third consecutive month in July, mainly due to a low base of last year. WPI inflation was (-) 0.25 per cent, in July 2020. "The high rate of inflation in July 2021 is primarily due to low base effect and rise in prices of crude petroleum and natural gas; mineral oils; manufactured products like basic metals; food products; textiles; chemicals and chemical products etc as compared the corresponding month of the previous year," the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.
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