Indian equity markets close flat

Tue, 10 Jun Closing

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Indian equity markets had a volatile day of trade today. After opening in red, the indices hovered around the dotted line during the day. However in the final hours of trade they recovered and finally closed in green. While the BSE-Sensex today closed higher by 4 points, the NSE-Nifty closed higher by 2 points. While, the Smallcaps closed in green and midcap were not in favour today. The BSE Mid Cap closed down by 0.53% and and BSE Small Cap indices closed up by 0.26%. As far as sectoral indices are concerned they closed the day on a mixed note. The stocks from healthcare and FMCG sector were leading among the pack of gainers, stocks from banking and capital goods stocks were the leading losers.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed today while European indices have opened firm. The rupee was trading at Rs 59.26 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Telecom stocks have closed the day on a mixed note. AGC networks and Himachal Futuristic were among the leading gainers, while Tata Teleservices and ITI Ltd were the leading losers. As per the financial daily, Idea cellular has signed deal for 2 years with Indian oil corporation for providing customer service solution. Idea will deploy its enterprise mobility platform for servicing over 82 million LPG consumers of 'Indane'. Reportedly, as per the Idea management, The service provided by Idea will allow Indane consumers to book LPG and offers IVR and SMS based delivery status updates, without having to visit the distributor's outlet. Currently the said service is launched in 45 cities and gradually be rolled out across other places in India in next three months. In our view this is certainly positive for Idea. This contract will be part of their enterprise (b2b) business which is not a big contributor to the topline as of now. On the EBITDA front this will be margin accretive. Idea closed down by 0.82%.

In a forecast that could pose a cause of concern for India, the ministry of earth sciences has forecasted that the rainfall for the June September period could be below normal. As per the ministry, the rainfall is expected to be 93% of the long period average (LPA) this season. A deficient monsoon would raise food inflation. On the other hand poor crop production due to deficiency in rainfall could impact the farm income as well. This may impact the rural disposable income and thus their standard of living.

The main reason for poor monsoon is due to a likelihood of El - Nino, a weather disturbance phenomenon, which disrupts rainfall patterns. However, it seems that the government is ready to cope with this situation. As an example, ministries are considering rescheduling crop loans, providing interest sub-vention to farmers etc. Proving seed subsidy is also being considered. While these steps may benefit the farmers in the near term if the food inflation becomes difficult to control India's growth could slow down.