Mumbai: The week gone by had a trading holiday Monday in India and the US, and began trading Tuesday on an extremely weak note. The merger of PSU banks probably did not go down well with the markets or they expected more than just this. Either way Tuesday was really weak. The remaining three days saw the market alternating between gains and losses. Come Friday, there were again expectations of yet another press conference and markets gained with BSE Sensex up 337 points and Nifty up 96 points.
The BSE Sensex lost 351.02 points or 0.94 per cent to close at 36,981.77 points while Nifty lost 77.05 points or 0.70 per cent to close at 10,946.20 points. The broader market saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 lose 0.77 per cent, 0.76 per cent and 0.68 per cent, respectively. BSE Midcap was down 0.76 per cent while BSE Smallcap was up 0.48 per cent.
Dow Jones gained 480.64 points or 1.83 per cent to close at 26,797.46 points. The Indian Rupee was under pressure and lost 32 paisa or 0.45 per cent to close at Rs 71.72 to the dollar.
The government has announced the setting up of a task force that would identify infrastructure projects which are technically feasible and financially/economically viable and can be initiated in 2019-2020. The minimum size would be Rs 100 crore and the target is to achieve investment of Rs 1 lakh crore in such projects by 2024-2025. This would help India get closer to its target of becoming a five trillion economy by the end of 2024-2025. More importantly such a massive drive would also ensure consumption, demand and job opportunities. This would kick-start the economy and help revive demand in many sectors as well.
Auto sector is seeing one of its worst slowdowns in recent decades. Market men and industry watchers expect that GST would be cut to boost demand. The Finance Minister has made it quite clear that it is for the council to take a call on the same as GST affects states and centre both. It can only happen if the majority of members of the council agree. This could be a tough order simply because manufacturing of automobiles is confined to a handful of states while consumption is across all states.