Globally, progress on US-China trade war, crude oil and currency movement would be actively tracked by the investors.
Jayant Manglik
Indian market witnessed a highly volatile trading week led by a series of domestic and global events. Firstly, the benchmark indices started the week on a strong note led by positive developments between US-China. However, the rally was short lived as geo-political tensions between India and Pakistan took centre stage.
Signs of de-escalation of tensions and supportive global cues led to a healthy rally in Indian market on the last day of the week, thus helping the Nifty and Sensex to close with gains of 0.7 percent and 0.5 percent.
Despite huge volatility, broader markets outperformed the benchmark as BSE Midcap and Smallcap ended with gains of 2.4 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. On the sector front, healthy buying was witnessed across all sectors except realty, which ended with losses of 1.2 percent. Amongst the top gainers were sectors like capital goods, metal and healthcare.
On the domestic front, Q3FY19 GDP numbers were announced which came in at a 5-quarter low at 6.6 percent as against 7.7 percent in the same quarter last year and 7 percent in the previous quarter.
The CSO lowered its growth forecast for FY19 to 7 percent from 7.2 percent earlier. In gross value added (GVA) terms, the economy grew by 6.3 percent in Q3FY19. Amongst the sectoral trends, on a QoQ basis, agriculture slowed to 2.7 percent v/s 4.2 percent, manufacturing grew by 6.7 percent v/s 6.9 percent, construction grew by 9.6 percent v/s 8.5 percent and financial services grew by 7.3 percent v/s 7.2 percent. Meanwhile, on the monsoon front, Skymet, in its preliminary monsoon forecast for 2019, has predicted over 50 percent chances of a normal monsoon.
Globally, positive developments between US-China kept the mood upbeat for the global markets.
Crude oil prices continued its upward movement mainly led by supply cuts by OPEC members and lower than expected inventory data from the US. Additionally, positive developments on trade talks also supported the price movement.
We expect markets to remain volatile in the near term. Signs of de-escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan is encouraging for Indian markets. However, any negative news on this front going forward would keep the markets volatile. Globally, progress on US-China trade war, crude oil and currency movement would be actively tracked by the investors.
The author is President at Religare Broking Ltd.
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