Market loses momentum over tension in Ukraine

Benchmark indices ended flat on Friday amid reports that a Malaysian airlines crashed on Thursday near the Ukraine-Russia border after being hit by a missile. The 50-unit S&P CNX Nifty ended above the 7,600 mark on Friday, while the benchmark BSE Sensex ended the week in the green.

On Friday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth $97.36 million, while domestic institutional investors sold $47.99 million, according to provisional data on the exchanges. In YTD, FIIs have bought $11.81 billion worth of shares.

On Friday, the 30-share BSE Sensex ended higher by 80.40 points, or 0.31%, to close at 25,641.56, while the broader 50-share Nifty ended 23.45 points higher to close at 7,663.90.

On Thursday, a Malaysian airline carrying 300 passengers was shot down, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each other for the crash. The tension between the two nations has escalated with Russia deploying more troops near Ukraine’s border.

The market gain was led by Hero MotoCorp, which was up 2.6%. TCS ended 2.6% higher at R2,442.65 after the IT major reported better-than-expected earnings with profits amounting to R5,058 crore in the June quarter. Axis Bank (2.1%), ICICI Bank (2%) and Wipro (1.8%) were among other gainers.

It was a positive week as such, with the benchmark indices advancing in four out of five sessions and the BSE Sensex ending higher by 2.5% or 617.21 points. The 30-share Sensex ended 1.3% higher on Wednesday after RBI, in a circular, said long-term funding for infrastructure and affordable housing would be exempted from CRR, SLR and Private Sector Lending requirements.

Among peers, Asian markets showed a mixed trend. Nikkei 225 (-1%), Hang Seng (-0.3%), Kospi (-0.1%) and Taiwan Taiex (-0.1%) ended in the red, while Straits Times (0.1%) and Shanghai Composite (0.2%) gained.

Back home, 18 of the 30 Sensex stocks ended in the red on Friday. In the broader market, the breadth was weak with 1,542 stocks traded on the BSE ending lower compared with 1,398 advances. Most of the 13 BSE sectoral indices ended in the red. BSE Power (-1.4%), BSE Realty (-0.9%) and BSE Metal (-0.5%) were among the major losers on Friday.

Experts continue to remain bullish on Indian markets and expect Indian corporates to see their return on equities improve in the near future.

“Looking at early steps, we believe the government is on the right path to improving administrative efficiency, increasing infrastructure spend, resolving various policy and planning bottlenecks and controlling inflation. With this backdrop, we continue to believe that we could witness acceleration in GDP growth and, correspondingly, an improvement in India Inc's ROE going forward,” Barclays said in a report.