Benchmarks trade slightly in the red in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the red in early deals on Monday as investors remained cautious with the upcoming RBI policy announcements, though the street is expecting the governor to keep the rates unchanged this time. Sentiments also remained dampened on report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 1133.64 crore on September 26, 2014. However, losses remained capped with Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram saying that growth rate in the current fiscal will be in range of 5.5-5-9 per cent, exceeding Standard and Poor’s estimate of 5.5 per cent. Some support also came in from report that with chances of mopping up better revenues than estimated, the Government has cut down its market borrowing by Rs 8,000 crore at Rs 5.92 lakh crore. Lower borrowings will mean that more money will be available for banks to lend to the private sector and individuals, hence the banking stocks will be in limelight today.

On the global front, the US markets moved higher in last session on bargain hunting and positive economic data, partly offsetting the substantial pullback seen in the previous session. The Asian markets were trading mixed at this point of time with some of the indices trading lower led by the sharp fall in the Hong Kong markets after the incident of clashes between police and pro-democracy protesters.

Beck home, on the sectoral front, consumer durables, software and technology witnessed the maximum gains in trade, while metal, banking and public sector undertaking 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 1372 shares on the gaining side against 509 shares on the losing side while 54 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 26694.41; around 68 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 26626.32, and has touched a high and a low of 26709.15 and 26539.69 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26619.69, down by 6.63 points or 0.02%. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 70.90% stocks advancing against 26.30% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.65%, while Small cap index up by 1.31%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.31%, IT up by 0.92%, TECK up by 0.73%, Realty up by 0.42% and Power up by 0.16% while, Metal down by 0.64%, Bankex down by 0.60%, PSU down by 0.54%, FMCG down by 0.34% and Oil & Gas down by 0.26% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 2.56%, TCS up by 1.59%, BHEL up by 1.58%, Cipla up by 0.96% and Infosys up by 0.84%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.13%, Coal India down by 1.03%, Hindalco down by 1.02%, Tata Power down by 1.01% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.00% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with almost half of the country’s thermal power stations left with coal inventory of less than seven days, the Coal Ministry has called a meeting to review the fuel position at the critical power stations. Notably, the government had earlier this month underscored that coal supply was in comfortable position and dry-fuel based power production has increased by about 22% in the three months of Narendra Modi-led government.

However, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal highlighted that coal shortage at power stations was due to stocks being consumed faster for higher electricity generation. He also unveiled that the government was making all efforts to augment the coal production and expediting the completion of three critical rail lines in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha which will potentially yield 60 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2017-18 and up to 200 MT by 2021-22. Reports suggest that state-owned Coal India will spend Rs 5,000 crore to purchase 250 rail rakes for faster evacuation of dry fuel from mines.

The CNX Nifty opened at 7,978.45; around 10 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 7,968.85, and has touched a high and a low of 7,987.60 and 7,937.80 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7966.75, down by 2.10 points or 0.03%. There were 17 stocks advancing against 33 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 3.19%, BHEL up by 1.41%, TCS up by 1.40%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.22% and Lupin up by 1.08%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.55%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 1.44%, PNB down by 1.36%, ACC down by 1.22% and Cairn India down by 1.22% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Hang Seng slipped by 459.77 points or 1.94% to 23,218.64, KOSPI Index declined by 1.47 points or 0.07% to 2,030.17, Straits Times dipped 4.78 points or 0.15% to 3,287.43, Jakarta Composite tumbled by 13.70 points or 0.27% to 5,118.86 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 15.99 points or 0.18% to 8,973.83.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 spurted by 40.61 points or 0.25% to 16,270.47, Shanghai Composite increased 9.70 points or 0.41% to 2,357.42 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 2.56 points or 0.14% to 1,843.06.