Sensex, Nifty open in red amid weak global cues; HUL shares fall 3%, Asian Paints shares plunge over 1% Domestic indices opened flat on Friday and slipped into negative territory. The BSE Sensex was trading below 60,800 and the Nifty below 18,100. The 30-share BSE benchmark fell 109.39 points or 0.18% to 60,749.04 and Nifty 50 dropped 8.10 pts or 0.04% to 18,099.75. The top gainers of Sensex were IndusInd Bank (up 1.17%), Power Grid (up 1.06%), State Bank of India (up 0.91%), HDFC Bank (up 0.91%) and HDFC (up 0.86%) while Hindustan Unilever (HUL) (down 2.84%), Sun Pharma (down 1.73%), Asian Paints (down 1.20%), Nestle India (down 1.20%) and Titan (down 0.94%).Sectoral Indices The sectoral indices were trading mixed. Bank Nifty rose 0.58%, PSU Bank climbed 0.98% and Nifty Private Bank advanced 0.53% while Nifty FMCG fell 0.91%, Nifty IT dropped 0.14%, Nifty Pharma plunged 0.66%, Nifty Auto slipped 0.23% and Nifty Oil & Gas sank 0.10%. China’s Shanghai Composite index rose 20.63 points or 0.64% to 3,260.91, Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 35.35 pts or 0.13% to 26,440.48 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 217.44 pts or 1% to 21,868.42 on Friday. The stock indices in the United States concluded Thursday’s session in red with the major indices falling over half a percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 252.40 pts or 0.76% to 33,044.56, S&P 500 dropped 30.01 pts or 0.76% to 3,898.85 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 104.74 or 0.96% to 10,852.27. Foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth a net Rs 399.98 crore while domestic institutional investors (DII) sold shares worth a net Rs 128.96 crore on Thursday, January 19, 2023, according to the data available on NSE. Delta Corp, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited (GNFC), L&T Finance Holdings and Manappuram Finance Ltd are the stocks/securities placed on the National Stock Exchange’s futures and options (F&O) ban for trade on Friday, January 20. According to the NSE, the stocks mentioned above are prohibited in the F&O sector because they have exceeded 95% of the market-wide position limit (MWPL). During the F&O ban period, no new positions are permitted for F&O contracts in these stocks.
Logistics, good or bad, are driven by the states and the commerce ministry has a LEADS (Logistics Ease Across Different States) report, based on perceptions. The 2023 version was released in December. Since states are heterogenous, in the reporting, they are divided into four groups—coastal, landlocked, north-east, and UTs. States that do well are called achievers. Nomenclature matters. Thus, states that are middling aren’t called average. They are called fast movers. States that are sub-par are called aspirers. Let me highlight coastal states, since 75% of export cargo is estimated to originate from them. Among coastal states, ones that do well are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. The ones that lag are Goa, Odisha, and West Bengal. While India’s logistics performance may have improved over time, that’s not true of every state. Some have slipped. Most states have a state-level logistics policy, including Goa and Odisha. West Bengal, bottom of the pecking order in the coastal category, doesn’t have one. To quote from LEADS 2023, “Looking ahead, the State (West Bengal) could benefit from formulating a State Logistics Master Plan and State Logistics Policy to drive efficiency improvements and facilitate investments within the logistics sector and undertake consultation with the logistics stakeholders for educating and informing them about the initiatives State is undertaking for the development and improvement of logistics sector.”
Logistics has been talked about for a long time and India has also focused on improving performance. We are now getting some precise data on measurement and quantification. That helps.
Bibek Debroy, chairman, EAC-PM. Views are personal.