The combined cash market turnover on BSE and NSE fell to its lowest level in nearly one-and-a-half months on Wednesday. The turnover on Wednesday stood at R9,653.49 crore, the lowest since January 1, 2014. The average turnover for the current calendar year is pegged at R12,632.39 crore.
Market players attributed the low turnover to the range-bound movement of the benchmark indices, which have lost 3% in the current calendar year. ?Nifty is trading in a range of 6,000-6,300 over the last four months. Volumes tend to dry off when markets trade within a range for a long time,? said Sahil Kapoor, chief technical analyst, Edelweiss Securities. ?The participation is also low as traders don?t want to take fresh positions with the current financial year almost at its end,? he added.
In the current calendar year, the highest turnover was seen on January 30 at R15,941.20 crore. With 13 sessions gone so far in February, the average turnover has dipped to R11,497.16 crore. This is much lower than the average turnover in the last four months when it was over R13,200 crore in each of the months.
Market players, however, continue to hold a bullish outlook. ?Markets are consolidating in a range. This is a correction and there is no reason to panic. Investors remain bullish in the medium- to long-term,? said Nirmal Jain, founder and chairman, India Infoline.
In recent days, global emerging markets (GEMs) have come under pressure owing to concerns over QE tapering. According to the latest edition of Bank of America Merrill Lynch?s Global Fund Manager Survey, emerging markets (EMs) have turned from being ?safe? five years ago to becoming the biggest risk to financial market stability.
Fund managers are of the view that cash volumes are likely to remain subdued till elections. ?Lack of a firm trend in macro-fundamentals is keeping sentiment and markets range-bound, possibly explaining the lower conviction levels and the lower volumes in the market. This is likely to continue till the elections,? said Lalit Nambiar, fund manager, UTI AMC.
Sensex slides by 186 pts
Benchmark indices on Thursday ended lower for the first time in five days on all-round selling, led by banking and metal shares, after global stocks slipped amid downbeat Chinese data and fears of more US stimulus cuts. The BSE Sensex resumed lower at 20,661.07 and dropped further to 20,522.04. It ended at 20,536.64, logging a loss of 186.33 points or 0.90%. In the past four days, it had spurted by 529.62 points to reach near one-month highs.
Only six constituents like Dr Reddy?s and Bajaj Auto of the 30-share Sensex managed to end up. ICICI Bank and Tata Steel led the 24 laggards in the bluechip index. The NSE 50-share Nifty dropped 61.30 points, or 1%, to finish at 6,091.45. In previous 4 days, it had gained over 150 points, amid buoyancy over interim budget proposals.
Poor performance of stocks was in sync with fall in Asia as a HSBC-Markit survey showed a drop in Chinese manufacturing in February. PTI