Stock Market: Global equity indices remain on edge after selloff
By S Jha
New Delhi, March 16: After the Wednesday selloff, the global equity markets sought to show signs of standing still to make a sense of massive wipe out in valuations. The banking crisis may not evaporate overnight, noted the market participants, and hence the indices globally may remain edgy in the coming days.
Europe was largely flat to positive after three hours of trading sessions. The European markets had seen major knock out on Wednesday after Credit Suisse Bank too joined its American peers to make the investors jittery. The governments in the developed world arse seen fire fighting the avalanche of banking crisis.
There is a fresh emergence of narrative against the Central banks globally. Within India, the monetary policy committee meeting in April has begun inviting sharp commentaries. There is a section which is now getting louder against the spate of rate hikes. The consensus view on the street remains that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will once more hike the Repo Rate by 25 basis points.
Newspapers are now full of commentaries against the RBI PMC meeting, weighing the options, while underlining that the inflation remains a challenge despite a marginal decline last month. Yet, the cereal inflation is leaping, which may limit the scope of the RBI MPC to pause the rate hikes. The consequent commentaries of the RBI have also been dampener for the equity markets.
The metal stocks were under pressure on Thursday with Hindalco cracking by over four per cent. Tata Steel and others were also under pressure. IndusInd Bank has been bearish for the last few days. The IT stocks were also under pressure. Asian Paints tracking the crude oil prices remains bullish.
Thursday being the weekly expiry saw the Nifty and Bank Nifty trading sideways as part of the trends when option writers gain upper hands to dictate the directions of the market. Nifty failed to reclaim the crucial 17000 level, closing at 16985. The Bank Nifty was helped with gains in the SBI and HDFC Bank to close on the positive side, while it moved wildly during the course of the session.
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