Post Session: Quick Review

Prolonging last session’s weakness, Indian equity markets further moving away from their record highs, witnessed drubbing and settled lower with a cut of over quarter of a percent on Monday on relentless selling by market-participants. Lack of positive triggers, which could lift the markets high combined with couple of disappointing earnings, mainly took a toll on investors’ mood. In the extremely dismal session of trade, barometer gauges though for couple of times managed to bounce-back into positive terrain, but every attempt of recovery was reciprocated by profit-booking. Wave of selling pressure which emerged in late deals, post the recovery witnessed in noon deals on the back of positive European shares, mainly took away all the steam from the market. By close of trade, while Sensex settled below the psychological 22,650 level, Nifty ended above the crucial 6750 bastion, which turned out to be immediate support level as any attempt below this level was reciprocated with recovery. However, losses of local equity markets remained limited on account of strength of broader indices, which outperforming larger counterparts, went home with gains in the range of 0.25%-0.85%.

On the global front, Asian stocks fell on Monday as investors weighed company earnings amid prospects for additional sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. Going by the latest development the United States and Europe are preparing new sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine. On the flip side, European stocks rose, led by drug companies after Pfizer Inc. confirmed an offer for AstraZeneca Plc.

Closer home, while most of the sectoral indices on BSE contributed to the downside of the markets, stocks from Healthcare, Realty and Banking counters emerging as investors’ darling curbed further losses. On the flip side, stocks from Capital Goods, Auto and Metal counters were the major pockets of weakness, which played a pivotal role behind the downfall of the markets in today’s trading session.

Meanwhile, set of disappointing earnings also weighed. While, Shree Cements lost over 2% after reporting 19% dip in Q4 net profit at Rs 222.50 crore despite higher sales, Motilal Oswal Financial Services lost close to one tenth of a percent on reporting 66% fall in Q4 consolidated net profit. In a major disappointment, HUL’s earnings failed to impress the street as the stock closed marginally in red. FMCG major Hindustan Unilever reported a 10.6% increase in net profit at Rs 872 crore for the quarter ended March 2014 as against Rs 787 crore for the same quarter a year ago. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1458: 1330, while 144 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 56.46 points or 0.25% to settle at 22,631.61. The index touched a high and a low of 22721.36 and 22597.19 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex, 9 stocks gained, while 21 stocks declined. (Provisional)

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices ended higher by 0.88% and 0.26% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Healthcare up by 1.65%, Realty up by 0.57% and Bankex up by 0.36%, were the only gainers, while Capital Goods down by 1.01%, Auto down by 0.97%, Metal down by 0.53%, FMCG down by 0.42% and Oil & Gas down by 0.25% were the top losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 3.49%, Sun Pharma up by 2.04%, Wipro up by 1.91%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.82% and SBI up by 1.37%, while, BHEL down by 1.91%, Gail India down by 1.90%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.81%, Tata Motors down by 1.75% and L&T down by 1.69% were the top losers in the index (Provisional)

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation gained 2.29% at 31.38 from its previous close of 30.68 on Friday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty lost 19.30 points or 0.28% to settle at 6,763.45. The index touched high and low of 6,786.25 and 6,750.30 respectively. Out of 50 stocks in Nifty, 17 stocks ended in the green and 31 in red, while 2 stocks ended unchanged.

The major gainers of the Nifty were Cipla up 3.49%, Sun Pharma up by 2.57%, Wipro up by 2.03%, DR Reddy up by 1.93% and Kotak Bank up by 1.92%.

The key losers were Ambuja Cement down by 4.28%, Asian Paint down by 2.70%, BHEL down by 2.48%, GAIL down by 2.33% and HCL Tech down by 2.09%. (Provisional)

European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 0.58%, UK’s FTSE 100 was up 0.75% and Germany’s DAX was up by 0.91%.

The Asian markets concluded Monday’s trade mostly in red, following losses on Wall Street, while traders keep a wary eye on the Ukraine crisis. Indonesia’s bonds gained, pushing the 10-year yield to a two-week low, after foreign funds boosted holdings this month, adding to last quarter’s record inflows. The global funds raised ownership of local-currency sovereign securities by 12.2 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion) this month to a record 372.9 trillion rupiah. Shanghai’s economy in the first quarter grew 7% year on year to 531.3 billion yuan ($85 billion), slowing from 7.6% in the previous three months. While the figure was in line with the national trend - China’s GDP growth slowed to 7.4% for the period, from 7.7% in the final quarter of 2013. Japan’s retail sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 11.0%, from 3.6% in the preceding month. Hong Kong Trade Balance rose to a seasonally adjusted -50.4B, from -53.7B in the preceding month. Thai Industrial Production fell to a seasonally adjusted -10.4%, from -4.4% in the preceding month.