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Indian equity benchmarks trimmed some of their losses in noon session, but continue to trade below the neutral lines, with Sensex and Nifty trading below 57900 and 17250 levels, respectively. Traders were worried as private report projected a sharp moderation in India's growth rate for FY24 to 5.2 percent as compared to FY23, saying Indian policymakers are 'misplaced' about their optimism on the country's growth prospects. Anxiety also came as Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) weekly statistical supplement showed that India's foreign exchange reserves fell to $532.66 billion in the week through Sept. 30, their lowest level since July 2020. However, markets trimmed some of its losses as after withdrawing over Rs 7,600 crore last month, foreign investors have resumed buying Indian stocks and have invested more than Rs 2,400 crore in the domestic equity markets in the first week of October. On the global front, Asian markets were trading lower as forecast-beating US jobs data fanned expectations for another big Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 57896.97, down by 294.32 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 57365.68 and 57907.96. There were 8 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 0.79%, while Small cap index was down by 0.35%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 0.05% and IT was up by 0.03%, while FMCG down by 1.22%, Capital Goods down by 1.16%, Industrials down by 0.91%, Auto down by 0.89% and Consumer Durables was down by 0.85% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 2.13%, TCS up by 1.47%, ICICI Bank up by 0.68%, Power Grid Corp up by 0.67% and Maruti Suzuki was up by 0.50%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.88%, ITC down by 1.84%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.48%, Reliance Industries down by 1.29% and HDFC was down by 1.20% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the government along with the industry should work on a bigger goal to make India a developed country and aspire to become a much larger economy by 2047. He said ‘over the last eight years including the current slightly elevated levels, the CAGR inflation is under 4.5 per cent through our tenure.’  He also said ‘when the other countries have double-digit inflation, India continues at moderate 7 per cent. There is monitoring of prices by the government on a daily basis. We are looking at, in the next few months, inflation coming back within the RBI’s band of 2-6 per cent.’

The Minister highlighted that India has tremendous potential with a large talent pool both to encourage design manufacturing services and the manufacturing eco-system. Manufacturing and innovation go hand in hand. He stressed that RBI has been proactive in all the measures that they have taken, and it is not about only the interest rates but holistic thinking that RBI has demonstrated. He also said that the world has huge expectations from India and the world is looking at India from a long-term perspective.

Goyal said the world expectation is also that India will drive global growth, provide the talent pool that the world needs and India will power technologies both from the perspective of development and its usage. He emphasized that today, it is the innovation and the spirit of enquiry that is prevalent across the country. India can become not just the back office of the world but going forward, the front office of the world. He also said that e-commerce in India is growing and to ensure transparency to customers the government is working on democratizing the e-commerce sector.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17213.25, down by 101.40 points or 0.59% after trading in a range of 17064.70 and 17216.40. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Axis Bank up by 2.31%, TCS up by 1.47%, Power Grid up by 0.72%, ICICI Bank up by 0.65% and Maruti Suzuki was up by 0.56%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 3.70%, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.59%, Tata Consumer products down by 2.39%, ITC down by 1.92% and Asian Paints was down by 1.83% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading lower; Straits Times trembled 34.91 points or 1.11% to 3,110.90, Jakarta Composite lost 44.23 points or 0.63% to 6,982.55, Shanghai Composite declined 36.16 points or 1.2% to 2,988.23 and Hang Seng was down by 518.00 points or 2.92% to 17,222.05.

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