Stock Market Live: Sensex down 150 points, Nifty below 15,050; banks, metals drag

Wipro’s Capco buy gutsy move; Indian IT rerating underway: Moshe Katri

Wipro is acquiring London-based Capco, a global management and technology consultancy to banking and financial services industry for $1.45 billion, making it the Indian IT major’s biggest acquisition till date. Moshe Katri, MD, Wedbush Securities shared his views on the acquisition. “We have a neutral rating on the stock and this is a gutsy move by Wipro, it is a large transaction and it brings with it a lot of risks,” Katri told CNBC-TV18 while adding, “Capco is not a pure-play digital company, it has not been able to grow its topline for multiple years.” More here

Positive on IT; will allocate money towards private, select PSU banks: BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas continues to remain positive on Indian technology companies, said Manishi Raychaudhuri, Asian Equity Strategist, Equity Cash Asia Pacific at the global investment firm said on Friday. Raychaudhuri also said that work from home has been an additional tailwind for IT companies. BNP Paribas will continue to allocate money towards private and select public sector undertaking (PSU) banks, Raychaudhuri added. The government’s talk on privatisation is an encouraging sign, he further added. More here

Gold rate today: Yellow metal falls below Rs 44,500 per 10 grams

Gold prices in India traded lower on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) Friday following weakness in international spot prices as rising bond yields and the stronger dollar continue to dampen sentiment fo the yellow metal, analysts said. At 11:00 am, gold futures for April delivery fell 0.54 percent to Rs 44,300 per 10 grams as against the previous close of Rs 44,541 and the opening price of Rs 44,444 on the MCX. Silver futures traded 0.92 percent lower at Rs 65,312 per kg. The prices opened at Rs 65,931 as compared to the previous close of Rs 65,921 per kg. International gold declined to a near nine-month low on Friday and was set for a third straight weekly decline, as the dollar and bond yields rose after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks that the rise in yields were not “disorderly.” More here

Reliance Industries to bear full cost of COVID-19 vaccination for employees, families

Reliance Industries Limited will cover the costs of COVID-19 vaccination for its employees and their families. In a letter addressed to “members of the Reliance family”, Nita Ambani, chairperson of Reliance Foundation, stated: “As per our earlier commitment, Reliance will bear the full cost of vaccination for you, your spouse, your parents, and vaccine-eligible-aged children. You and your family’s safety and well-being is our responsibility. Mukesh (Ambani) and I truly believe that cherishing the health and happiness of our loved ones is what it means to be part of a family – the Reliance Family.” More here

Healthy correction in global equities; would buy pharma, IT in India: HSBC

HSBC believes this is a healthy correction in global equities, said Herald Van Der Linde, Head-Asia Equity Strategy at the Investment banking company, on Friday. He further said that India is on top of the list of markets they would want to look at. “This is a healthy correction; about a month ago we thought there would be a wobble in the markets, in the sense that bond yields at some point of time going to bite into Asian equity valuations, which were quite high and we are in this wobble now,” Linde told CNBC-TV18. Linde also said that he would buy into the markets like India. The country is on top of the list of markets he would want to look at. More Here

Heranba Industries makes a strong debut; lists with 43.5% premium at Rs 900 per share

Shares of Heranba Industries were listed with a hefty premium of 43.54 percent at Rs 900 on the National Stock Exchange against the issue price of Rs 627 per share. The stock got listed at Rs 900 apiece on the BSE. The IPO of agrichemicals manufacturer Heranba Industries, which was open from February 23-25 was subscribed 83.3 times at a price band of Rs 626-627 per share. The quota for qualified institutional investors was subscribed 67.45 times and the retail portion 11.84 times. The HNI quota saw 271.15 times subscription.

Morning market quote from Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services

“The ‘bond bears vs equity bulls’ game continues in the US market with similar reverberations in other developed and emerging markets. The highly valued Nasdaq appears to be in a short- phase of reversion to mean, having declined 10% from record highs. The US 10-year yield has again spiked to 1.575% giving further ammunition to bond bears. Back home, both FIIs & DIIs turned sellers yesterday impacting market sentiments. The steady rise in dollar index also is not good news for FII inflows. Inspite of all these the texture of the market remains ‘ buy on dips’ since the ‘growth & earnings recovery story’ is in tact and ample liquidity is available waiting to be invested. The comments of the Fed chief Jerome Powel before the FOMC Meet will be keenly watched by the market. The outperformance of mid-small-caps is likely to continue”

Market Watch: Mehraboon Irani, MD & CEO, Gini Gems Consultants 0n Adani Ports

This is looking a little bit aggressive. They have announced buying out the Gangavaram Port with 31 percent stake. It is definitely a positive considering the fact that our government’s focus is also on building up infrastructure more and more. Has the Adani made the right move, the answer is yes. All these things going in the right direction. Very difficult to define the valuations, it is virtually impossible to define the valuations, they are growing companies, moving in the right direction. So ultimately it is just a question of how big they will be four-five years down the line. Since you cannot quantify it, nobody is minding the way these group stocks are moving.

Opening Bell: Sensex opens over 400 points lower, Nifty around 14,950; all sectors in the red

Indian indices opened lower for the second straight session on Friday following losses in global peers as bond yields surged again. Asian indices also trade with deep cuts following a negative close on Wall Street overnight. Domestically, broad-based selling was seen across all sectors with banking, financial, and metal sectors leading the losses. At 9:18 am, the Sensex was down 441 points at 50,405 while the Nifty fell 129 points to 14,951. Broader markets, however, were in the green in early deals with the midcap index up 0.04 percent and smallcap index up 0.7 percent. On the Nifty50 index, ONGC, GAIL, IOC, BPCL, and Adani Ports were the top gainers while ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Tata steel, Axis Bank and Hindalco led the losses.

Seeing a commodity boom; gold prices to settle at $1,700-1800/oz in 2021: Citi’s Edward Morse

Edward Morse, Global Head of Commodities Research at Citi Group, in an interview with CNBC-TV18, on Thursday said he sees a boom time for commodities. “Definitely a boom time for commodities,” said Morse. “It is misleading to call it a supercycle or anything in between a boom and a supercycle,” he added. For gold, he said, “We think this is going to settle between $1,700 per ounce and $1,800 per ounce range where it has been trading recently. It may go down a bit. We believe that central banks particularly in emerging markets (EMs) are going to be increasing their gold holdings just as they were increasing them over the course of the ten years before the pandemic made them a little bit too expensive for EMs central banks.” More here

Indian Bank reports 3 NPA accounts as fraud to RBI

Indian Bank on Thursday reported three accounts as fraud to the RBI with total outstanding of over Rs 35 crore. Three non-performing accounts, S Kumars Nationwide Ltd, Priya Ltd and Yuvaraj Power Projects, have been declared as fraud and reported to the RBI as per regulatory requirement, Indian Bank said in an exchange filing. The state-owned lender said all of the three accounts have caused fund diversion to the tune of Rs 35.29 crore. S Kumars Nationwide Ltd has outstanding balance of Rs 14.51 crore, Priya Ltd Rs 9.73 crore and Yuvaraj Power Projects Rs 11.05 crore. While the former two accounts have provision up to 100 percent of the loan outstanding, the third account has provision cover of Rs 9.60 crore at end of December 2020, said the lender.

Wipro to buy UK-based consultancy Capco for $1.45 bn, its biggest acquisition so far

Indian information technology firm Wipro Ltd said on Thursday it would buy privately held British consultancy Capco for $1.45 billion. This is the software company’s biggest acquisition so far. London-based Capco serves financial institutions across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions, Wipro said in a stock exchanges filling. Wipro said the acquisition will make it one of the largest end-to-end global consulting, technology and transformation service providers to the banking and financial services industry. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the quarter ending June 30, 2021. More Here

China fixes over 6% as target for GDP in 2021

China aims to expand its gross domestic product by over six percent in 2021, with more efforts on reform, innovation and high-quality development, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced at the National People’s Congress, (NPC), the country’s Parliament on Friday. China’s economy, which was the first to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic and early to recover from its impact, grew 2.3 percent in 2020, registering the lowest annual growth rate in 45 years.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the world’s second-largest economy grew by 2.3 percent expanding to USD 15.42 trillion in dollar terms in 2020, according to the data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last month. In the local currency, the GDP exceeded 100-trillion-yuan (USD 15.42 trillion) threshold to 101.5986 trillion yuan. More here

First up, here is quick catchup of what happened in the markets on Thursday

Indian indices snapped three sessions of gains as Nifty ended below 15,100, dragged by losses in metal, financial stocks amid weak global cues as bond yields rose again. However, the midcap index outperformed benchmarks once again as they gained 2 percent from the initial lows to end 0.5 percent higher. The Sensex closed  1.16 percent lower at 50,846.08 while Nifty fell 1.08 percent to settle at 15,080.25. Broader market indices outperformed the benchmarks as both midcaps and smallcaps traded at 0.49 and 1.17 percent, respectively. UltraCement, Adani Ports, Shree Cement, Grasim, Dr Reddy were the top gainers, while JSW Steel, HDFC, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Tata Motors were the top losers on Nifty50.

Welcome to CNBC-TV18’s Market Live Blog

Good morning, readers! I am Pranati Deva from the market’s desk of CNBC-TV18. Welcome to our market blog, where we provide rolling live news coverage of the latest events in the stock market, business and economy. We will also get you instant reactions and guests from our stellar lineup of TV guests and in-house editors, researchers, and reporters. If you are an investor, here is wishing you a great trading day. Good luck!