After opening their day on a negative note, Indian share markets witnessed choppy trades and ended their session on a flat note. Barring the IT sector, most of the sectoral indices ended the day lower with realty sector and banking sector witnessing maximum selling pressure.
At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 12 points and the NSE Nifty closed flat. The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day down by 0.4%, while the BSE Small Cap index stood flat.
Asian stock markets finished on a negative note as of the most recent closing prices. The Hang Seng was down 0.9% and the Nikkei was trading up by 0.1%. The Shanghai Composite stood down by 1.5%.
The rupee was trading at 66.04 to the US$ at the time of writing.
TCS share price witnessed buying interest today as the company reported a 4.5% year-on-year (yoy) rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 69 billion for the March quarter. The IT services, consulting and business solutions firm had reported Rs 66.1 billion profit in the same quarter last year. It had reported negative profit growth in the previous three quarters of the financial year.
Eveready Industries share price witnessed selling pressure today after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a fine of Rs 2.15 billion on Eveready, Indo National, industry grouping AIDCM and their officials for cartelisation in the pricing of zinc-carbon dry cell batteries.
As per the news, the meeting is likely to boost compliance with the production pact and even discuss how they would like crude near US$ 100.In the news from commodities space, market participants are closely tracking oil prices ahead of the outcome of a Joint Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC ministerial monitoring committee (JMMC) meeting.
How this pans out remains to be seen. We will keep you updated on all the developments from this space.
Note that crude oil prices have been witnessing a rising trend of late. However, this is not good news from India's perspective.
Back home, state-run oil companies have raised petrol and diesel prices only marginally this week despite higher international rates anticipating that political considerations may bring back price controls in fuel prices. This has triggered a fall in shares of the big refiners.
In the news from hotel sector, stock market participants are betting on hotel companies ahead of the summer holiday season as growing demand and supply constraints have pushed occupancy to its highest in at least eight years.
Note that there is a very interesting trend happening in the hotel industry right now. It has caused the recent rally in hotel stocks. Most of these stocks are making life-time highs.
To dig a little deeper, we pulled out data on hotel occupancy across the country.
Why Are Hotel Stocks Rallying?
According to an HVS report, the hotel industry's occupancy rate was at 65% in the year ended March 2017. That was the highest since 2008 and was seen on the back of a decline in supply of rooms.
The occupancy rate (number of rooms utilised/ the total rooms available), peaked in 2007-08 and started declining.
The declining occupancy led to the poor health of hotel industry. Lower occupancy lead to lower profitability.
However, over the last few years there hasn't been much addition capacity and the occupancy rate now is inching towards its previous peak of 2007-08.
The current rally in the stocks is on the hope that the occupancy levels will inch up further and the hotel industry will start making good profits.
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