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Below is the Daily Market Commentary 15 March 2022 By Mr. Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd

Domestic indices erased its early gains amid weakness in global markets. Also increase in retail inflation to 6.07% in February, which is well above the RBI’s expectation, impacted sentiments. Nifty opened marginally positive but witnessed selling pressure in the later half to end the day with loss of 208 points (-1.2%) at 16,663 levels. Broader market too ended in red with Nifty Midcap 100 down -0.9% while Nifty Smallcap 100 was down 1.4%. Among sectors, Auto and FMCG ended in green. While Metals were top laggards down 4%, it was followed by Oil and Gas, IT, Media, Banking and Financial Services which were down 1- 2% each.

Global markets witnessed weakness as slew of events like the fourth round of sanctions against Russia, concerns about fresh cases of coronavirus in China and expected U.S. Fed interest rate hike weighed on investor sentiments. Although fall in crude and metal prices capped the downside.

After almost 1000 points run up in last seven day, Nifty is now consolidating between 16,600-16,800 zones. While we have seen a strong rally in large caps, the broader market has not yet participated and is underperforming the Nifty. Also, with softening of crude and metal prices, we are witnessing interest in sectors which had underperformed so far like Auto and FMCG. The ongoing US Fed meeting would be the key event this week which would drive the near term market direction.

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