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In a volatile trading session, Indian equity benchmarks were under selling pressure in afternoon session as investors weighed the impact of rising cases of Covid-19 in the country, and awaited the outcome of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy. Traders were worried as Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhusan warned that Maharashtra was at the beginning of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a letter to the Maharashtra government, said that a report by the Central team that had visited the state from March 7-11 found that there was very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine the contacts. However, downfall is capped with reports that the retail industry's business is on the brink of full recovery as it achieved 93 per cent of the pre-COVID sales in February. On the sectoral front, oil stocks were in focus as India's fuel demand, except ATF, has returned to pre-COVID levels and a reflating economy will help consumption grow in near future. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly lower as investors waited to see if the U.S. Federal Reserve will signal a faster path toward policy normalisation than previously expected.

Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 50284.31, down by 79.65 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 50171.88 and 50561.12. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 1.12%, while Small cap index was down by 0.78%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 0.50%, TECK up by 0.28% and Bankex was up by 0.02%, while Oil & Gas down by 2.15%, PSU down by 1.69%, Energy down by 1.64%, Metal down by 1.51% and Power was down by 1.45% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 1.37%, HDFC Bank up by 0.80%, Infosys up by 0.75%, TCS up by 0.61% and HDFC was up by 0.60%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.78%, NTPC down by 2.69%, Sun Pharma down by 2.30%, Asian Paints down by 2.06% and Nestle was down by 1.97% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, The Union Cabinet has approved a bill to set up a Development Finance Institution (DFI) to raise long-term capital to fund infrastructure development, as the government has envisaged an investment of Rs 111 lakh crore by 2025. The DFI will be managed by a professional board, comprising at least 50 per cent non-official directors. The proposed legislation will give effect to the Budget announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1. The government has proposed Rs 20,000 crore to capitalise the institution.

Sitharaman expects the proposed institution to raise up to Rs 3 lakh crore in the next few years because it will have access to the market funds, which are otherwise not available. She said ‘we expect even big pension funds, sovereign funds would all come... as we are able to attract them in the national infrastructure investment fund.’

In her Budget 2019-20 speech, the minister had proposed a study for setting up DFIs for promoting infrastructure funding. About 7,000 projects have been identified under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) with a projected investment of Rs 111 lakh crore during 2020-25. NIP, a first-of-its-kind initiative to provide world-class infrastructure across the country and improve the quality of life for all citizens, will be crucial for attaining the target of becoming a $5 trillion economy by FY 2025.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 14854.65, down by 55.80 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 14846.15 and 14956.55. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ITC up by 1.37%, Tech Mahindra up by 0.84%, Infosys up by 0.78%, HDFC up by 0.61% and HDFC Bank was up by 0.60%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 4.55%, NTPC down by 2.88%, Coal India down by 2.75%, ONGC down by 2.74% and Asian Paints was down by 2.09% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 1.13 points to 29,026.56, Nikkei 225 slipped 6.76 points or 0.02% to 29,914.33, KOSPI fell 19.67 points or 0.64% to 3,047.50, Taiwan Weighted dropped 97.34 points or 0.60% to 16,215.82, Shanghai Composite declined 1.27 points or 0.04% to 3,445.46 and Jakarta Composite was down by 20.44 points or 0.32% to 6,289.26.

On the other side, Straits Times was up by 1.90 points or 0.06% to 3,107.41.

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