Asian stock markets are higher today as Chinese and Hong Kong shares show gains. The Shanghai Composite is flat while the Hang Seng is up 0.2%. The Nikkei 225 is trading flat too. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq edged into positive territory on Monday, with gains held in check by falling industrials.
Back home, India share markets opened on a flat note with negative bias. The BSE Sensex is trading down by 38 points while the NSE Nifty is trading down by 29 points. The BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index opened up by 0.3% and 0.2% respectively.
Except IT stocks and FMCG stocks, all sectoral indices have opened the day in red with energy stocks and automobile stocks leading the losers.
The rupee is currently trading at 69.64 against the US$.
The Indian rupee opened marginally higher at 69.59 per dollar on Tuesday versus previous close 69.67.
Yesterday, the rupee declined by 44 paise to close at 69.67 against the US dollar amid higher dollar demand from importers and rising crude oil prices.
Rupee was weighed down against the US dollar for the fourth successive session as global crude oil prices started to rally and hit the highest level in four months.
However, persistent foreign fund inflows supported the rupee and capped the losses to some extent.
FIIs remained net buyers in the capital markets, putting in Rs 3.3 billion on a net basis Monday.
Moreover, the recent surge in the Indian stock markets can be also attributed to the strong foreign investor inflows into Indian equities.
The chart reveals the monthly trend in foreign investor flows into Indian equities over the last five years. The period almost coincides with the term of the Modi government.
During this period, you can see that foreign investor participation in Indian equities shrank.
Over the last five years, foreign investors were net sellers in 24 months. Effectively, foreign investors were net sellers 40% of the time.
The chart shows that the highest monthly net foreign investor inflow over the last five years was recorded in March 2017 at Rs 337.8 billion.
However, foreign investor flows are influenced by a myriad of global factors and are susceptible to change course anytime.
This week, on the domestic front, inflation and industrial production number will be released and weaker-than-expected economic number could extend losses for the currency.
Moving on to the news from pharma sector. As per an article in a leading financial daily, Sun Pharma's wholly-owned subsidiary has been incorporated and will commence distributing Sun Pharma's formulation products in India with effect from April 2019.
Reportedly, Sun Pharma has closed the transaction with Atlas Global Trading and transfered its domestic distribution business from Aditya Medisales (AML) to a wholly owned subsidiary.
Sun said this transition is expected to be complete by the first quarter of FY20. The impact of this transaction will be one-time reduction in sales and profit of the company for FY19.
AML is owned by promoters of Sun Pharma and was in the thick of controversy few months ago when a whistleblower complaint with the market regulator alleged that transactions of dubious nature worth nearly Rs 58 billion
were conducted between AML and Suraksha Realty. Sun refuted this allegation, but the stock was battered.
AML became a related party entity only in FY18 though it has been Sun's distributor for quite some time before that.
It had revenues of Rs 80 billion in FY18 and Sun Pharma said that the arrangement with AML was for efficient tax purposes and that it was ready to review arrangements if investors aren't comfortable.
To know more about the company, you can access to Sun Pharma's Q3FY19 result analysis and Sun Pharma's 2018-19 Annual Report Analysis on our website.
Sun Pharma share price opened the day down by 1.1%.
And to know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.
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