Market continues to tread water

50 share index, Nifty, although recovering from day’s low continued trading flat with positive bias tailing cautious start of European markets. Investors drew some sense of relief after activity in India's services sector grew at its fastest pace in well over a year in June as new business poured in, adding to signs of a pick-up in the economy even as inflation remains high. The HSBC Services Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by Markit, jumped to a 17-month high of 54.4 in June from 50.2 in May. However, profit-booking on higher levels after markets scaled a fresh time high in previous session, kept gains in check. While, Exchange operator BSE halted trading on Thursday morning across all of its markets, including shares, currencies and indexes due to a network outage, NSE was trading above crucial 7700 level. Nevertheless, broader indices outperforming larger peers, were trading with gains in the range of 0.20%-0.50%.

On the global front, while Asian pacific shares looked set for mix close with the Hang Seng retracing earlier gains ahead of U.S. June employment figures, released a day early because of the U.S.'s Fourth of July holiday. Additionally, European markets too got off to a cautious start as investors awaited the U.S. payrolls figures before chasing stocks higher.

Closer home, the CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7731.90, up by 6.75 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 7708.65 and 7754.65. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

In broader space, while CNX midcap was trading higher by 0.20%, CNX Smallcap index was advancing by 0.50%.

On the NSE sectoral front, while CNX Energy down by 0.71%, CNX Realty down by 0.47% and CNX Media down by 0.27% were the losers, stocks from CNX Pharma up by 1.09%, CNX Metal up by 0.75%, CNX Auto up by 0.74%, CNX PSU Bank up by 0.36% and CNX IT up by 0.30% were the prominent gainers.

Meanwhile, on the back of general elections and uncertainties over the new Companies Act, Private equity (PE) investments in the April-June quarter dropped 28% to $1.94 billion across 88 deals as compared to $2.69 billion through 114 transactions in the same period last year. In January-March quarter, private equity firms invested $2.43 billion via 109 deals. There were merely four PE investments worth at-least $100 million in April-June quarter of 2014 compared to eight such transactions in the same period last year. There was a delay in closure on few deals as investors squeezed through bets on 'safe sectors' in the second quarter of 2014 given that national election results were declared only in the last month of the quarter and also on account of new rules imposed by the New Companies Act.

According to a quarterly study by Venture Intelligence, e-commerce, pharma companies attracted dominant share of private equity investments in the second quarter of the Calendar Year (CY) 2014. Among the E-commerce segment, Flipkart's latest round of investments totaling $210 million led by Russia-based DST Global - was the largest PE investment announced during the quarter. Flipkart, which has been attracting new investors from around the world into India regularly over the last couple of years, has now raised $750 million in total.

Meanwhile, the other two largest transactions were in the pharma sector and involved investors who have been operating in India for more than a decade --Temasek and Warburg Pincus. While Temasek paid $170 million to buyout fellow PE investor ChrysCapital from Intas Pharma, Warburg Pincus committed to invest $150 million in Laurus Labs by buying out the stake held by previous investor Fidelity Growth Partners India.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma Industries up by 2.33%, Tata Motors up by 2.29%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.73%, United Spirits up by 1.63% and Wipro up by 1.37%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.42%, Bajaj Auto down by 2.12%, Indusind Bank down by 1.47%, NTPC down by 1.10% and Cairn India down by 1.10% were the top losers.

Asian stocks looked set for a mixed close, since on one hand, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 0.93 points or 0.05% to 1,887.77, Shanghai Composite increased 2.76 points or 0.13% to 2,062.18, Straits Times increased 14.96 points or 0.46% to 3,278.87 and Taiwan Weighted increased 41.27 points or 0.44% to 9,526.23.

On the flip side, Hang Seng decreased 28.27 points or 0.12% to 23,521.35, Nikkei 225 decreased 21.68 points or 0.14% to 15,348.29, Jakarta Composite decreased 10.51 points or 0.21% to 4,897.77 and KOSPI Index decreased 4.31 points or 0.21% to 2,010.97.

European markets got off to a cautious start; with Germany’s DAX increasing by 8.86 points or 0.09% to 9,911.27, UK’s FTSE 100 increasing by 13.45 points or 0.2% to 6,816.37 and France’s CAC decreasing by 16.4 points or 0.37% to 4,444.72.