Market may slump on dismal global cues

Market is seen opening sharply lower tracking weak global cues amid concerns that trade war could hit global growth. Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could slump 101 points at the opening bell.

Overseas, Asian markets slumped on Friday, tracking sharp falls in US stocks, which took a hit on fears of a potential trade war. In China, Shanghai Composite was down 2.69%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was down 3.71%.

US stocks fell sharply on Thursday, with major indices suffering their worst day in weeks as the threat of a trade war with China sparked a widespread selloff.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum on Thursday that would impose retaliatory tariffs on at least $50 billion in Chinese imports. The new measures are designed to penalise China for trade practices that the Trump administration says involve stealing American companies' intellectual property. They will primarily target certain products in the technology sector where China holds an advantage over the US. Investors are concerned that protectionist trade policies could be met with retaliatory measures by major trading partners, and that a trade war could contribute to inflation in the economy.

Closer home, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 161.11 crore yesterday, 22 March 2018, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 409.89 crore yesterday, 22 March 2018, as per provisional data.

Among corporate news, Hero MotoCorp (HMCL) said that the company through its wholly owned subsidiary, HMCL Netherlands B.V. (HMCL BV), entered into a joint venture agreement in 2014 (as subsequently amended from time to time) and certain ancillary agreements inter alia, for sale, distribution and marketing of the company's products in Colombia. The joint venture is being implemented through a joint venture company incorporated in Colombia, i.e. HMCL Colombia S.a.S (the JVC). The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 22 March 2018.

Pursuant to subsequent investment by HMCL BV into the share capital of the JVC, the equity interests/shareholding of the joint venture partners in the JVC have been re-aligned whereby the company's equity interest/shareholding in the JVC (through HMCL BV) has increased to 68%, on a fully diluted basis, from 51%; and the other joint venture partner's equity interest/shareholding in the JVC, held through Woven Holdings LLC, has decreased to 32%, on a fully diluted basis, from 49%.

L&T Technology Services said that Germany's Covestro, a world-leading manufacturer of high-tech polymer materials, has chosen the company as one of its major engineering services partners to implement digitalization based Engineering Programs across Covestro's global locations. L&T Technology Services has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by Covestro to execute these engineering transformational programs. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 22 March 2018.

Covestro is running a digitalization program for engineering, operations and maintenance activities: OSI2020 (Optimized System Integration). Within this program, L&T Technology Services has been selected as the engineering partner to drive digital transformation across Covestro's 8 global locations, especially in the area of data migration.

Key benchmark indices logged modest losses yesterday, 22 March 2018. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, fell 129.91 points or 0.39% to settle at 33,006.27. The Nifty 50 index fell 40.50 points or 0.40% to settle at 10,114.75. The Sensex finished a tad above the psychologically important 33,000 mark after gyrating above and below that level.

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