Indian markets expected to open on a positive note, TATA Chemicals rating upgrade, M&M offloads stake.

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is up by 29.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.

Asia-Pacific markets tumbled on Tuesday in a volatile session, after sharp losses seen overnight on Wall Street as investors grappled with the fallout of failed banks in the US, including Silicon Valley Bank. The Japanese Nikkei is down by 2.39 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down by 0.87 percent and South Korea’s Kospi is down by 2.15 percent in early morning deals.

Sliding bank shares dragged Wall Street down on Monday with investors worried about contagion from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, but trade was choppy and the Nasdaq composite actually ended higher as some sectors benefited from hopes the Federal Reserve could ease up on interest rates hikes The S&P 500 lost 0.15 percent and Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.45 percent respectively.

Stocks News:

?Mahindra & Mahindra has offloaded 6.05% equity representing 2,28,80,000 shares in its associate company Mahindra CIE Automotive through a block deal on Monday

?Lupin announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) has completed an inspection of its Bioresearch Centre in Pune. The inspection closed without any observation.

?Fitch Ratings has revised Tata Chemicals‘ (TCL) long-term foreign currency issuer default rating at ‘BB+’ with a positive outlook from stable.

?Shares of Apollo Pipes will be in focus today as the company’s board meets to consider fundraising.

?Blackstone has sold its entire 20.5% stake in Sona BLW Precision Forgings for about Rs 4,916 crore via a block deal on Monday

?Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,546.86 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DII) bought shares worth Rs 1,418.58 crore on March 13, the National Stock Exchange’s provisional data showed.

Domestic and International Events

• India’s headline retail inflation rate edged down to 6.44 percent in February from January’s three-month high of 6.52 percent, data released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation on March 13 showed.
• Oil prices fell over 2 percent in volatile trading on Monday as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank roiled equities markets and raised fears of a fresh financial crisis, but a recovery in Chinese demand provided support.
• Indian bond yields eased on March 13, tracking a drop in US Treasury notes’ yields, dealers said. The yield on the 10-year benchmark bond eased to 7.3579 percent at the close from 7.4321 percent in the previous session. The bond yield opened at 7.3512 percent, the lowest since February 20.
• Gold and silver prices surged on Monday, as their safe-haven appeal drew in investors spooked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, with the crisis also sparking hopes the US Federal Reserve would have to slam the brakes on its aggressive monetary policy.

Key Equity Indices