Benchmarks trade slightly in the red on profit booking

Indian equity benchmarks were trading slightly in the red in early deals on Friday as investors opted to book some of their profits after recent rallies. Sentiments also remained dampened as the Paris-based think tank OECD, revising its forecast downwards has projected 5.4 per cent growth for the Indian economy this year, as global recovery continues at a moderate pace. Earlier in September, it had projected 5.7 per cent growth rate for India. However, downside remained capped on report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1030.85 crore on November 5, 2014.

Global cues too remained supportive with the US markets ending modestly higher in last session as traders looked ahead to tomorrow’s closely watched monthly jobs report; also there was a report of bigger than expected drop in the weekly initial jobless claims that supported the markets. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time on hopes of a good jobs data from the world’s largest economy before a government report on employment.

Back home, on the sectoral front, consumer durables, healthcare and software witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, banking and public sector undertaking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading slightly in the red, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1054 shares on the gaining side against 1014 shares on the losing side while 67 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 27902.71; around 13 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 27915.88, and has touched a high and a low of 27980.93 and 27843.13 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27843.32, down by 72.56 points or 0.26%. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 49.37% stocks advancing against 47.49% declines. The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.05%, while Small cap index down by 0.02%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 0.38%, Healthcare up by 0.35%, IT up by 0.30%, Realty up by 0.24% and  TECK up by 0.16%, while Metal down by 0.85%, Bankex down by 0.74%, PSU down by 0.51%, Capital Goods down by 0.44%, Infrastructure down by 0.34% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddys Lab up by 2.02%, Cipla up by 1.21%, Tata Motors up by 1.11%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.00% and Axis Bank up by 0.83%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.81%, Coal India down by 1.76%, GAIL India down by 1.54%, Sun Pharma down by 1.50% and SBI down by 1.37% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the existing foreign trade policy is likely to continue till the end of this year as the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has floated an internal proposal for extending the current FTP provisions till December 31. Now, the Government is examining the option to address uncertainties faced by exporters due to delay in the new policy. 

The FTP includes both an annual plan and a five-year long-term policy. Though FTPs are usually announced soon after the Union Budget is presented, the new Government, which came in power in May, has not yet been able to do so. Heavy work agenda of Commerce Ministry and elections in a number of States have resulted in the delay to present new FTP. The delay in new FTP has started impacting domestic exports as exporters are unsure about the continuity of the existing export incentive schemes, like the focus product and focus market schemes, which give them a competitive edge in the global market. After recording a double-digit growth in May and June, export growth slowed down in subsequent months with a growth rate of just 2.73 percent in September.

Although most of the existing incentive schemes will continue till a new policy is announced. Therefore, a formal extension of the schemes is required to provide confidence to exporters that the schemes will not change before the given date.

The CNX Nifty opened at 8,331.85; around 7 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 8,338.30, and has touched a high and a low of 8,360.35 and 8,323.90 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8320.80, down by 17.50 points or 0.21%. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were DLF up by 3.16%, Zee Entertainment up by 2.14%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 2.12%, BPCL up by 1.82% and ACC up by 1.68%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.33%, Asian Paints down by 2.16%, Coal India down by 1.96%, GAIL India down by 1.72% and Cairn India down by 1.61% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; Nikkei 225 soared 71.83 points or 0.43% to 16,864.31, Hang Seng improved 296.02 points or 1.25% to 23,998.06, KOSPI Index surged by 2.05 points or 0.11% to 1,938.53, Straits Times rose 4.58 points or 0.14% to 3,295.54, Shanghai Composite climbed 14.43 points or 0.59% to 2,440.29, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI added 2.73 points or 0.15% to 1,834.71 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 27.62 points or 0.31% to 8,918.64.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was down by 16.60 points or 0.33% to 5,017.63.