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After hitting a record high of 18,604.45 in October last year, the equity market has been weighed down by concerns over inflation, rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, and recession fears, resulting in overseas investors pulling out of stocks here.

"Fast changing macroeconomic conditions, hawkish Fed stance to tame inflation through continued interest rates hikes and profit warnings by corporates across the globe seem to suggest tough days are ahead for tech spending," said Nomura

Hindalco , Berger Paints, Motherson Sumi, Page, Muthoot Finance, Piramal Enterprises, Colgate-Palmolive , NMDC, Oberoi Reality, Cummins India and Zee Entertainment are among the companies which will announce their March quarter earnings today.

Between March 2020, when the Nifty hit a four-year low of 7,511.1, and October 2021, when the index touched an all-time high of 18,604.45, the stock benchmark has risen nearly 148%. Retail investor participation has multiplied and touched 2.71 crore accounts as of April 30 this year also on account of low returns from other asset classes, mainly fixed deposits and real estate.

That shift in view was largely down to stocks no longer having a backstop from central bankers, who are turning off the liquidity taps and are now more focused on fighting decades-high inflation by hiking interest rates, in many cases aggressively.

At least two stocks will go ex-dividend today. That includes ITC, which had announced a final dividend of Rs 6.25 per share recently. Visaka Industries, which announced a final dividend of Rs 8 per share, will also go ex-dividend today.

“The 15% export tax will reduce the margins on steel exports, which were attractive for the last year due to lower exports from China (due to its de-carbonisation drive) and higher energy prices in Europe,” the brokerage said.

“Most participants judged that 50 basis-point increases in the target range would likely be appropriate at the next couple of meetings,” minutes of the Fed’s May 3-4 meeting released Wednesday in Washington showed.

The earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and ammortisation stood at Rs 227 crore in Q4FY22 increasing by 11.6% compared to the previous year.

As part of the restructuring, the Apollo Pharmacy distribution business was re-organized into a 100% subsidiary Apollo HealthCo Ltd along with Apollo 24/7 - the group’s digital healthcare services platform.