Budget Fails To Impact Markets

Union Budget was presented in the Parliament and the markets witnessed a see-saw movement post Budget. It rallied sharply immediately after the Budget speech and Nifty was up more than 3% at one point of time. As the current Budget was low on expectations it seemed more like a relief rally. But, as the Budget lacked any big bang announcements, the higher levels once again attracted selling and Nifty lost almost all its post speech gains in the last 60 minutes to close with a marginal gain of only 30 points. The stocks or sectors that gained post Budget were the ones that were expecting some negative announcements and the absence of such negative measures provided a leg up to these sectors. Cases in point are Auto stocks and tobacco stocks. The banking or financial stocks were also amongst the gainers as FM pegged the fiscal deficit at just around 4.6%. So, the prominent gainers were ITC, IDFC, TVS Motors, IOB, Central Bank, Reliance Cap, Canara Bank, Federal Bank, M&M and Maruti.Coal India was nother nig stock to gain sharply as the Coal prices were increased 30%. But this measure had a negative fallout on the user sectors and power and cement stocks reacted negatively. There were some measures to boost infra spending but nothing much to enthuse the markets. Sesa Goa was impacted negatively as 20% duty was imposed on iron ore exports. So, the list of losers had stocks like BGR Energy, Patel Engg., Sesa Goa, Jain Irrigation, Mundra Ports, Pantaloon, Educomp, Reliance Infra, Ambuja Cement, TV18, Ranbaxy and JP Industries.

So, the Budget has come and gone and has largely failed to have much of impacts on markets. We are back to looking at Global cues and Crude oil movement. But, since there were no or muted expectations market is unlikely to react much on the lower side. We could see a drop in volatility and perhaps a sideways movement between 5200 and 5600 for the short term. Some base building is likely in certain banking/financial stocks. The Auto counters too could consolidate around current levels before moving higher. But, broadly nothing much seems to have changed technically for the overall markets and the bigger sectors. Nifty must trade above 5375-85 consistently to be in the neutral territory, atleast. 5250-60 is likely to provide support in the near term.