Markets down 2% for the week

Fri, 5 Apr Closing

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The roller coaster trend that was on display for most part of the day continued during the closing hour as well with the Indian stock market indices eventually closing the day in the red. While the Sensex edged lower by around 60 points (down 0.3%), Nifty ended around 20 points lower. BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices on the other hand closed nearly flat. Advance to decline ratio on the BSE-Sensex was evenly poised as one stock rose for every one that fell during the day.

While Asian indices closed mixed today, Europe is witnessing a negative trend currently. The rupee was trading at Rs 54.9 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Today's fall took the market's decline during the week to 2%. It hasn't been a particularly good 2013 so far. Not just for India but for other emerging markets too. The developed markets like US and Japan on the other hand seem to be performing far better. And thus India's decline could also be due to money shifting from here to these two nations. But one would be mistaken to believe that this trend has strong legs to it. For the rally in US seems to be devoid of any fundamentals and is more cheap money induced. Thus, over the long term there's no reason why Indian indices shouldn't create new records as its economic growth is still higher than developed counterparts. Therefore, every correction should not be seen as negative but rather an opportunity to profit from India's long term story.

ITC, the cigarettes to hotels conglomerate closed lower by around 3% on the bourses today, a significant fall considering the company's market valuation. The decline appeared to be a reaction by the market on the company's proposed cigarette price hikes by as much as 14%-18%. The hikes were taken to counter the 18% increase in excise duty on 65 mm cigarettes as part of the FY14 Union Budget. Investors are of the opinion that steep price hikes over the past couple of years would have an impact on volumes and could even result into a de-growth.

Voltas, one of India's leading engineering firms, has said that it projects revenues from air-conditioners to increase by 20% in the current financial year. It has an aim to sell close to 10 lakh units of the consumer good. And in order to achieve this, it is expanding aggressively in the tier-2 and tier-3 cities, which it expects to contribute close to 55% to the overall sales. The company has also launched its new 'all-weather ACs' line up. It should be noted that this new category of ACs has helped the company retain its position in the domestic market. As per the company, it had an 18.5% market share in domestic AC market as on March 2013. The company will also not take any price hike this year, thus going all out to increase volumes. The stock closed 1% higher on bourses today.