Indices hover near day's low; breadth negative

Indices traded near the day's low with losses in afternoon trade. The Nifty traded below the 17,150 level. Media, realty and metal stocks advanced while IT and FMCG shares came under selling pressure.

At 13:22 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex dropped 330.8 points or 0.57% at 57,264.32. The Nifty 50 index lost 92.95 points or 0.54% at 17,129.60.

In broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 0.17% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index slipped 0.07%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was negative. On the BSE, shares 1,438 rose and 1,826 shares fell. A total of 134 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

India's projected economic growth for 2022 has been downgraded by over 2% to 4.6% by the United Nations, a decrease attributed to the ongoing war in Ukraine, with New Delhi expected to face restraints on energy access and prices, reflexes from trade sanctions, food inflation, tightening policies and financial instability, according to a UN report released on Thursday.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report downgraded its global economic growth projection for 2022 to 2.6% from 3.6% due to shocks from the Ukraine war and changes in macroeconomic policies that put developing countries particularly at risk. The report said while Russia will experience a deep recession this year, significant slowdowns in growth are expected in parts of Western Europe and Central, South and South-East Asia.

Nifty Gainers & Losers:

Bajaj Auto (up 1.74%), JSW Steel (up 1.23%), RIL (up 0.68%), UPL (up 0.67%) and Hindalco Industries (up 0.67%) were top gainers in Nifty 50 index.

Titan Company (down 3.35%), Maruti Suzuki India (down 1.92%), Cipla (down 1.87%), Tech Mahindra (down 1.6%) and Nestle India (down 1.54%) were top losers in Nifty 50 index.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Tata Consumer Products fell 0.72%. The meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled on 29 March 2022 to consider preferential issue of equity shares of the company.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) rose 1.89% after the market regulator SEBI allowed exchanges having a commodity derivative segment to facilitate trading in options on commodity indices.

Bharti Airtel rose 0.6%. The telecom company on Friday announced that it has paid Rs 8,815 crore to the Department of Telecom (Government of India) towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in auction of year 2015. The prepayment is for instalments due in FY 2027 and FY 2028.For the past four months, Bharti Airtel has settled Rs 24,334 crore of its deferred spectrum liabilities much ahead of scheduled maturities. These liabilities carried an interest rate of 10% and have been paid off through a combination of strong free cash generated by business, equity proceeds and significantly lower cost debt of similar tenor.

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