“There are no key triggers for the markets, currently. While markets opened higher amid optimism from the passage of the insurance bill in the Rajya Sabha, it doesn’t come across as a great surprise as it was a long-pending issue. The retail inflation data has led to concerns that RBI may not cut the interest rates in its April monetary policy. Further, the fear of a rate-hike by the US Fed in its June Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has put currency markets under pressure,” said Andrew Holland, CEO at Ambit Investment Advisors.

On Friday, the BSE benchmark Sensex closed 1.5% or 427.11 points lower at 28,503.3 points, while NSE’s Nifty closed 128.25 points or 1.5% lower at 8,647.75 points. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for the month of February stood at 5.7% as compared to 5.1% seen in the month of January.

The Rupee closed 0.7% lower to 62.96 against the dollar. Among emerging market currencies, the Taiwan Dollar (-0.2%), Singapore Dollar (-0.5%), South Korea Won (-0.2%), South Africa Rand (-0.94%) and the Russian Ruble (-0.2%) were trading lower amid a fear of a US Fed rate-hike.

Asian markets showed a mixed trend. The Nikkei (1.4%), Hang Seng (0.1%), Kospi (0.7%) and Shanghai Composite (0.7%) ended in the green. Straits Times (-0.32%), Jakarta Composite (-0.25%) and Taiwan Taiex (-0.17%) ended in the red.

Back home, among sectoral indices, BSE Capital Goods (-2.6%), BSE FMCG (-1.9%) and BSE Bankex (-1.9%) were trading lower. Among individual stocks, Bhel (-3.4%), Larsen & Toubro (-3.1%) and Bajaj-Auto (-2.6%), were the top Sensex losers.