Benchmarks trades lower in early deals on weak global cues

Extending their previous session’s southward momentum, Indian equity benchmarks have made a sluggish start and are trading lower in early deals on Wednesday amid weak global cues. The US markets ended lower in last session partially due to profit taking, while worries about the outlook for interest rates also generated some negative sentiment. Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time, led by the Hang Seng market and with some of the indices declining the most in a month amid concern over the timeline for US interest-rate increases.

Back home, sentiments also remained cautious after the Supreme Court after declaring all 218 coal block allocations since 1993 as illegal has reserved its decision on their fate. Also in a meeting with Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal, and New & Renewable Energy, all the States assured the Centre that they would reduce technical and commercial losses in accordance with the agreed trajectory and those over-achieving will be incentivised. Depreciation in Indian rupee too dampened the sentiments. The rupee hit 60.8250 in early trade, its lowest level since August 20.

On the sectoral front, realty, power and infrastructure witnessed the maximum gains in trade, while FMGC, software and banking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1251 shares on the gaining side against 799 shares on the losing side while 70 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 27230.94; around 3 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 27265.32, and has touched a high and a low of 27251.44 and 27107.42 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27157.88, down by 107.44 points or 0.39%. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 59.01% stocks advancing against 37.69% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.25%, while Small cap index up by 0.36%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.51%, Power up by 0.33% and Infrastructure up by 0.01% while, FMCG down by 0.76%, IT down by 0.49%, Bankex down by 0.49%, Oil & Gas down by 0.42% and Capital Goods down by 0.39% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Power up by 1.36%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.19%, Cipla up by 0.80%, ICICI Bank up by 0.65% and Hindalco up by 0.46%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.52%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.31%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.08%, SBI down by 0.97% and HDFC down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to bring in more clarity in the existing laws and give more protection to the Indian industry, Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stated that the government will come out with a policy on intellectual property rights (IPR) in next six months and set up a think tank on IPR to strengthen the country's patent regime and encourage innovation. Till now, there is no IPR policy in the country and the developed nations such as the US and European countries raised concerns on certain provisions of the Indian Patent Act leading to the rejection of patents filed by multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Commerce Minister has asserted that the IPR policy will help in dealing with issues being raised by developed nations and protect interest of India on IPR related matters. The policy will also help modernise intellectual property administration and offices, commercialisation of IP, collaboration between different departments including science and technology, encourage innovation and enhance domestic filing of patents.

Regarding the set up of think tank on IPR, Nirmala Sitharaman stressed that a think tank on IPR will be formulated soon, which will enable the Commerce Ministry to handle the IPR issues more firmly. The think tank will have about 15-20 members on the IPR including professors, end-users and legal experts who will constantly keep the ministry informed about developments on international IPR issues and concerns.

The CNX Nifty opened at 8,135.55; around 17 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 8,152.95, and has touched a high and a low of 8,135.75 and 8,105.75 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8116.85, down by 36.10 points or 0.44%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Power up by 1.13%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.06%, Cipla up by 0.89%, ICICI Bank up by 0.72% and Power Grid Corporation up by 0.63%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.66%, Indusind Bank down by 1.64%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.35%, United Spirits down by 1.09% and ITC down by 1.06% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in the red. FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI declined by 4.58 points or 0.24% to 1,869.54, Taiwan Weighted slipped by 109.70 points or 109.70% to 9,325.07, Straits Times contracted by 7.78 points or 0.23% to 3,335.18, Hang Seng decreased by 453.82 points or 1.80% to 24,736.63, Nikkei 225 crumbled by 9.52 points or 0.06% to 15,739.63, Jakarta Composite dipped by 42.64 points or 0.82% to 5,154.48 and Shanghai Composite was down by 17.97 points or 0.77% to 2,308.56.