Benchmarks trade slightly in the red in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the red in early deals on Tuesday as investors opted to book some profit, after barometer gauges hitting all time highs in previous session. Investors also remained on sidelines ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on coal block allocations later today. However, losses remained capped as some support came in with leading international risk-rating firm Maplecroft saying that India is now the world’s best growth-market bet as the risks of doing business in the country have declined with the Narendra Modi government having completed its first quarter. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1162.98 crore on September 8, 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

On the global front, the US markets made a mixed closing on Monday after a choppy session of trade. The stocks showed a lack of direction throughout the trading session with traders eyeing report on retail sales later in the week. The Asian markets too were trading mixed at this point of time, though the Japanese market was trading higher after the yen dropped to a six-year low against the dollar.

Back home, on the sectoral front, auto, infrastructure and power witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while realty, metal and software remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1185 shares on the gaining side against 879 shares on the losing side while 70 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 27316.43; around 3 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 27319.85, and has touched a high and a low of 27328.27 and 27260.35 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27261.69, down by 58.16 points or 0.21%. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 55.53% stocks advancing against 41.19% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.07%, while Small cap index up by 0.21%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 0.38%, Infrastructure up by 0.36%, Power up by 0.05%, FMCG up by 0.01% while, Realty down by 0.82%, Metal down by 0.64%, IT down by 0.38%, Bankex down by 0.33%, Oil & Gas down by 0.30% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 1.20%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.19%, Coal India up by 0.93%, Tata Motors up by 0.52% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.34%. On the flip side, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.39%, Hindalco down by 1.09%, Infosys down by 0.88%, Tata Steel down by 0.79% and ICICI Bank down by 0.75% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with an aim to boost India’s MSME sector’s growth, Union Cabinet Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Kalraj Mishra has stated that the government will soon introduce a new comprehensive policy for the MSME sector after incorporating suggestions from related associations. Highlighting the importance of the MSME sector, the Minister said that the country would become a developed nation on the strength of this sector and the new policy will introduce measures to create progressive environment for small industries’ growth. 

By adding further, Kalraj Mishra stated that the government is making several efforts for addressing issues related to loan sanction for micro industries, skill development, implementing e-governance system to improve governance and introducing mechanism to simplify the process to seek NOC in a time-bound manner.

The MSME sector contributes around 8% of the country's GDP, 45% of the manufactured output and provides employment to over 8 crore people. Further, to boost the country's micro, small and medium enterprises sector (MSMEs), the government has allocated Rs 24,124 crore for sector during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period (2012-17) which is 133.53 percent higher than allocation of Rs 10,330 crore during the Eleventh Plan.

The CNX Nifty opened at 8,161.90; around 12 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 8,173.90, and has touched a high and a low of 8,174.55 and 8,153.65 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8154.60, down by 19.30 points or 0.24%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ultratech Cement up by 1.48%, Cipla up by 1.13%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.13%, Cairn India up by 1.12% and Coal India up by 0.95%. On the flip side, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.56%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 1.41%, DLF down by 1.41%, Hindalco down by 1.04% and Tech Mahindra down by 0.98% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed, Nikkei 225 was up by 0.45%, Straits Times was up by 0.26% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.30%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 0.12%, Jakarta Stock Price Index was down by 0.66% and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 0.02%.