Benchmarks continue to trade in red

Indian bourses continued to trade in red in the afternoon session as selling momentum in the equities persisted, however the losses were capped and marginal recovery from day's low levels was seen as buying appeared in realty, sugar and consumer durables stocks. Increased profit-booking by funds and retail investors at prevailing record levels along with weak trend in the Asian markets dampened the trading sentiments. Most of major indices were trading in red and selling witnessed in front line blue chip stocks took the markets to lower levels. Investor sentiments took a hit after International Monetary Fund (IMF) attributed India’s economic slowdown to internal factors. Oil and Gas was under pressure with most of stocks such as Gail India, NTPC and ONGC were trading lower by around 1%. On the other hand, sugar stocks rallied by up to 13% after the India Ratings revised its FY15 outlook on the sector to stable from negative. IT stocks was back on trader's radars with heavyweight TCS and Infosys up by around 0.30% as the rupee depreciated against the dollar.

GM Breweries was locked at 10% lower circuit at Rs 148.20 after the company said its board has recommended a bonus issue of shares in the ratio of 1:4. While, Adani Power stock was up 1.7% at around Rs 52.85 as it announced the commissioning of the fourth unit of 660 megawatts (MW) at its power plant at Tiroda in Maharashtra. Venus Remedies has soared 13% to around Rs 299 after the drug maker said it has received marketing authorisation for meropenem, an antibiotic drug, from Venezuela and plans to launch the product in the Latin American country in the next few months.

On global front, Asian equity indices were trading in red with Straits Times was down by 0.18% and Jakarta Composite down by 0.88%. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,700 and 22,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,358 stocks traded, 1,316 stocks advanced, while 929 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22,423.34 down by 85.73 points or 0.38% after trading in a range of 22,525.21 and 22,369.20. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trade in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.39%, while Small cap index up by 0.70%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.28%, Consumer Durables up by 0.87%, IT up by 0.33%, Metal up by 0.24% and Teck up by 0.18%. While, Capital Goods down by 0.94%, Oil and Gas down by 0.89%, Auto down by 0.67%, Power down by 0.50% and FMCG down by 0.43% were the losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco inds up by 0.77%, Cipla up by 0.71%, Wipro up by 0.68%, Axis Bank up by 0.41% and Tata Steel up by 0.40%. On the flip side, Gail India down by 2.16%, BHEL down by 1.97%, ONGC down by 1.38%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.35% and L&T down by 1.17%.

Meanwhile, fund rising by Indian listed companies through private placement of debt securities or bonds declined by 23.6 percent to Rs 2.76 lakh crore in FY14 compared to the previous financial year.

Domestic companies have garnered a total of Rs 3.61 lakh crore from debt on a private placement basis during FY14, while the number of issues in FY14 dropped to 1,924 from 2,489 in the previous financial year.

In debt private placements, firms issue debt securities or bonds to institutional investors to raise capital. The fall in fund mobilisation through debt securities could be attributed to a good performance of the equities in the stock market and stability of the rupee compared to a dollar during the reported fiscal. Further, the highest amount of funds of around Rs 41,811.99 crore were mobilised by the companies in April, 2013, followed by Rs 35,213.92 crore in June. Conversely, the amount of Rs 2,088.71 crore was garnered through the private placement route in August, the lowest in the entire financial year 14.

India witnessed significant improvement on macroeconomic front during second half of FY14. The current account deficit (CAD) contracted to $4.2 billion (0.9% of GDP) in Q3 FY14 as compared to $5.2 billion (1.2% of GDP) in Q2 FY14 and $31.9 billion (6.5% of GDP) in Q3 FY13. Further, high FIIs inflows particularly in Q4 FY14 and significant improvement in country CAD and inflation have brought stability in rupee value against the dollar.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,713.35 down by 22.75 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 6,741.85 and 6,696.80. There were only 22 stocks advancing against 28 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were PNB up by 1.50%, DLF up by 1.02%, NMDC up by 0.99%, Hindalco up by 0.73% and Cipla up by 0.71%. On the flip side, Gail down by 2.24%, BHEL down by 1.97%, Asian Paints down by 1.81%, Cairn down by 1.44% and ONGC down by 1.43% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in red; Jakarta Composite down by 0.88% to 4,848.10, Hang Seng down by 0.23% to 22,512.64, Nikkei 225 down by 0.12% to 15,054.44 and Straits Times was down by 0.18% to 3,214.74. While, Shanghai Composite up by 0.63% to 2,056.28