Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash

Indian share markets witnessed positive trading activity throughout the day today and ended on a strong note.

Benchmark indices surged for the fifth consecutive session despite a weak Asian set-up and rising domestic wholesale inflation.

India's inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) rose to 13.11% YoY in February from 12.96% in January, according to data released by the commerce ministry today

WPI inflation was 4.83% in February 2021. This is the 11th consecutive month in which WPI has been in double digits.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 936 points (up 1.7%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 241 points (up 1.5%).

Infosys and HDFC Bank were among the top gainers today.

IOC and ONGC, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 16,880, up by 231 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index ended on a flat note, while the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 0.3%.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the banking sector, IT sector and finance sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Realty and oil & gas stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of GHCL and Credit Access Grameen hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a mixed note today.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended down by 5% and 2.6%, respectively. The Nikkei ended up by 0.6% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a positive note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 166 points.

The rupee is trading at 76.56 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 1.1% at Rs 52,309 per 10 grams.

In news from the finance sector, the RBI has removed the interest rate ceiling on loans offered by NBFC-MFIs to bring them at par with other microfinance lenders including banks as the central bank seeks to put all these lenders on a same regulatory platform.

While this move is on an expected line, RBI surprised the market by raising the annual household income level to 3 lakhs for classification of microfinance loans. Earlier, the income caps were kept at Rs 1.25 lakh in rural areas and Rs 2 lakh in urban and semi-urban areas.

With this change, unsecured loans offered by several other non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) will henceforth be classified as micro loans, industry experts said. All such collateral free loans, irrespective of end-use, will be considered as microfinance loans.

To protect borrowers from falling into debt-trap, the regulator capped monthly loan repayment of every borrower saying that monthly outflows on account of repayment should not exceed 50% of the monthly household income.

RBI also said that no loan can be linked with a lien on the deposit account of the borrower. There will be no prepayment penalty on microfinance loans.

The harmonized regulations will address the concerns related to the over-indebtedness of microfinance borrowers, said Alok Misra, chief executive of Microfinance Institutions Network, the industry lobby group.

The RBI offered freedom in fixing board-approved lending rates but warned that interest rates should not be usurious and that it would come under its supervisory scrutiny.

RBI allowed a breather to NBFC-MFIs by reducing the minimum requirement of microfinance loans of total loan assets to 75% from 85% earlier, in sync with the spirit of harmonisation of microfinance regulation for all sorts of lenders.

Banks remain the largest microfinance lenders with about 40% market share, followed by NBFC-MFIs, small finance banks, other NBFCs and NGOs. Their combined microcredit portfolio stood at Rs 2.3 tn at the end of December last year, registering 1.9% growth year on year (YoY).

RBI has issued a draft consultative document on regulation of microfinance loans in June last year. Now, it issued the final guidelines based on the feedback it received.

The regulator told NBFC-MFIs to raise their net-owned fund to Rs 70 m by 31 March 2025 and to Rs 100 m by 31 March 2027 from Rs 50 m at present.

How this pans out remains to be seen.

Brijesh highlighted that the previous open=low of Nifty was 16,843 and multiple lows being in the range of 16,830-16,850 zone, the range may act as minor hurdle.

Here's what he shared:

• The open=high of 16,757 hit on 10th Mar 2022 was a cautious sign for bulls as it did right around the resistance mark.
  
  But, it finally surpassed the first hurdle as it is trading at 16,775 at 13:00hrs today, the second hurdle is yet to be broken by bulls.

(Click on image to enlarge)

 The resistance of channel is placed at 16,830 which will be the major trend change level for weeks to come.

• 
  Index has convincingly crossed above the 200DEMA (16,692) and the 61.80% Fibonacci retracement is placed at ~16,800.
  
  The previous open=low was 16,843 and multiple lows being in the range of 16,830-16,850 zone, the range may act as minor hurdle.
  
  Come-on bulls, lets break the resistance zone and head higher to 17,400-17,900 zone.