Benchmarks add losses; Nifty slips below 6700 mark

Indian equity benchmarks added losses to continue their weak trade in the late afternoon session on account of selling in frontline blue chip counters. The sentiments were on pessimistic note from early trades after retail inflation data disappointed the street by coming higher than expected at 8.31% in March. The selling got intensified on reports that China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 18 months at the start of 2014, but did a touch better than expected and showed some improvement in March. Traders were seen piling positions in FMCG stocks while selling was witnessed in Realty, IT and TECK sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Titan Company was trading in green after foreign brokerage firm upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral and raises target price, on expectations gold regulatory frameworks would be dismantled in 6-12 months.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in green, while the European markets were too trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 6,700 and 22,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 955:1615 while 129 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22333.17, down by 151.76 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 22,533.61 and 22,295.59. There were 6 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.95%, while Small cap index down by 1.14%.

The sole gaining sectoral indices on BSE was FMCG up by 0.97%. While, Realty down by 3.54%, IT down by 2.11%, TECK down by 1.71%, Capital Goods down by 1.57% and Power down by 1.54% were the top losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 1.77%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.92%, ICICI Bank up by 0.41%, Gail India up by 0.27% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.18%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 2.90%, BHEL down by 2.67%, Tata Power down by 2.48%, Wipro down by 2.44% and Hero MotoCorp down by 2.34% were the top losers of the index.

Meanwhile, taking into account the rising concerns of India’s subdued exports performance, the new foreign trade policy (FTP) to be introduced this year, is expected to focus on issues such as services sector shipments, standards and branding of products. The five-year FTP (2009-14) ended on March 31 and the new government formed after the general election will introduce new FTP for the period 2014-19. FTP governs all exports and imports related activities and mainly aims at enhancing the country's exports and use trade expansion as an effective instrument of economic growth and employment generation. 

It has become imperative to boost country’s exports which have been hovering near $300 billion over the last three fiscal years. The new FTP is likely to promote exports of specific products in specific geographies and would also abolish conventional method of exports through focusing more on areas like high-tech items, branding of products in the global market and new strategy for marketing. The policy may also review the current schemes which are not in compliance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) norms. According to global exports norms, India cannot provide export subsidies to a sector if outbound shipments from those particular segment crosses 3.5 percent share in the global market. Therefore, India would not be able to provide export subsidies to textile sector as the sector is reported to have crossed the 3.5 percent share in the global market. India's share in global trade stands at about 2 percent.

In FY14, India's exports grew marginally by 3.96 percent to $312.35 billion, which was below the set export target at $325 billion. During April-February period, services exports, which contribute about 60 per cent to the country's GDP were worth $152.69 billion.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,684.30, down by 48.80 points or 0.72% after trading in a range of 6,748.65 and 6,672.50. There were 11 stocks advancing against 39 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were ITC up by 1.80%, Bank of Baroda up 1.19%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.71%, McDowell up by 0.70% and PNB up by 0.43%. On the flip side, DLF down by 4.79%, BHEL down by 3.08%, Infosys down by 2.94%, BPCL down by 2.71% and Tata Power down by 2.54% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Nikkei 225 up by 3.01%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.08%, Straits Times was up by 0.21%, Jakarta Composite up by 0.24%, Shanghai Composite up by 0.17% and Hang Seng up by 0.11%. On the flip side, KLSE Composite was down by 0.27%.  

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 0.90%, Germany’s DAX added 0.83% and UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.43%.