Stock Market Today: Top 10 things to know before the market opens

March 24, 2023 Bruce Langford

The Indian stock market is expected to open in the red on March 24 as trends in the SGX Nifty indicates a negative opening for the broader index in India with a loss of 21 points.

In the previous session, the BSE Sensex fell 289 points to close at 57,925, while the Nifty50 declined 75 points to settle at 17,077 and formed Tweezer Top kind of pattern on the daily charts, which is a bearish reversal pattern as high of two days’ candlesticks are almost same.

As per the pivot charts, the Nifty has support at 17,048, followed by 17,010 and 16,949. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 17,170, followed by 17,208 and 17,269.

Stay tuned to Moneycontrol to find out what happens in the currency and equity markets today.

We have collated a list of important headlines across news platforms which could impact Indian as well as international markets:

US Markets

Wall Street closed higher on Thursday as market participants were reassured by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s reassurances that measures will be taken to keep Americans’ deposits safe.

All three major US stock indexes reversed an earlier rally, turning red before clawing their way back to positive territory in the final hour as Yellen resumed her congressional testimony.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.14 points, or 0.23 percent, to 32,105.25, the S&P 500 gained 11.75 points, or 0.30 percent, to 3,948.72 and the Nasdaq Composite added 117.44 points, or 1.01 percent, to 11,787.40.

Asian Markets

Asia-Pacific markets largely fell on Friday, as investors weigh remarks from US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said federal emergency actions to back up failed regional banks could be used again if necessary.

The Nikkei was down 0.38 percent, and the Topix saw a larger loss of 0.46 percent as the country saw its core inflation come in at 3.1 percent for February, marking the first time in 14 months that the pace of inflation has slowed.

South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.23 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.59 percent lower.

SGX Nifty

Trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a negative opening for the broader index in India with a loss of 21 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 17,062 levels on the Singaporean exchange.

Oil drops 1 percent as US in no rush to refill strategic reserve

Oil prices settled 1 percent lower on Thursday, reversing early gains after US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told lawmakers that refilling the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) may take several years.

Brent crude futures fell by 78 cents, or 1 percent, to settle at $75.91 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures slid by 94 cents, or 1.3 percent, to end the session at $69.96 a barrel.

Bank of England hikes rates by 25 bps, following US Fed

The Bank of England raised interest rates by a further quarter of a percentage point on Thursday and said it expects the surge in British inflation to cool faster than before, despite a surprise jump in price growth announced on Wednesday.

Sounding more upbeat about the outlook for the country’s slow pace of economic growth, the BoE’s nine rate-setters voted 7-2 in favour of a 25 basis-point increase in Bank Rate to 4.25 percent.

That was its 11th consecutive increase in borrowing costs which began in December 2021, although it was the smallest rise since June last year.

Monetary Policy Committee members Swati Dhingra and Silvana Tenreyro voted to keep rates on hold while Catherine Mann, who has been the committee’s strongest advocate for raising rates in bigger steps, backed the relatively small 25 basis-point increase.

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FII) have net sold shares worth Rs 995.01 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DII) purchased shares worth Rs 1,668.85 crore on March 23, the National Stock Exchange’s provisional data showed.

RBI to conduct 5-day Variable Rate Repo auction on March 24

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 23 said it will conduct a 5-day Variable Rate Repo auction for a notified amount of Rs 75,000 crore.

“On a review of current and evolving liquidity conditions, the Reserve Bank of India has decided to conduct a fine-tuning 5-day Variable Rate Repo (VRR) auction for the fortnight beginning March 24, 2023 instead of the main operation of a 14-day variable rate Repo/ Reverse Repo auction,” RBI said in a release.

The auction will take place on March 24 between 10:30 am and 11 am. The reversal of funds will take place on March 29.

Accenture forecasts Q3 revenue below estimates at about $16.7 billion

Accenture Plc on Thursday lowered its annual revenue and profit forecasts and said it would cut about 2.5 percent of workforce, or 19,000 jobs, the latest sign that the worsening global economic outlook was sapping corporate spending on IT services.

More than half of the layoffs will affect staff at its non-billable corporate functions, the company said, sending its shares up more than 4 percent before the bell.

Accenture now expects annual revenue growth to be between 8 percent and 10 percent compared to the previous projection of 8 percent to 11 percent increase.

Japan inflation slows to 3.1 percent in February

Japan’s consumer prices rose 3.1 percent in February from a year earlier, government data showed Friday, slowing from the four-decade highs seen in previous months.

It is the first deceleration in over a year and marks a drop from January, when consumer prices jumped 4.2 percent on-year — the highest level since September 1981, fuelled in part by higher energy bills.