Indian equity markets started the day on a positive note but traded near the dotted line throughout the day on back of weak Asian stock markets as investors adopted a wait-and-watch stance over the situtation in Ukraine and ahead of the Federal Reserve policy review later today. FMCG and Metal stocks were the biggest gainers. While the BSE Sensex closed higher by 1 point, the NSE-Nifty closed higher by 7 points. BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap closed on a positive note.
As regards global markets, Asian indices closed in the red. European indices have also opened weak. The rupee was trading at Rs 61.00 to the dollar at the time of writing.
The Delhi High Court has agreed to hear a petition by state-run power producer NTPC Limited challenging a recent regulatory ruling on electricity pricing. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission had said last month that it would tighten incentive structures on capacity utilisation and tax treatments for NTPC. This announcement has led to the sharp decline in the share price of the company as the new pricing structure will likely hit NTPC's earnings.
India's drop in the engineering exports in February by 3.05%, the first time in seven months, has resulted largely from a huge decline in the shipments to the key ASEAN markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand of the trading bloc with which India has entered into a free trade agreement. While the exports to the ASEAN countries dropped sharply, the data showed a sizeable improvement in shipments of key engineering products to South Korea and Japan, the two other countries with which India has entered into a free trade pact. The despatches to South Korea in February 2014 went up by over 60% while to Japan were up by 16%. However, the engineering exports to the USA took a turn for the better and turned around from negative to positive growing by 8%.
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