Benchmarks continue to trade in red in late morning session

After making a flat but positive start, benchmark equity indices have slipped into negative territory and trading with a slender cut as the losses in Capital Goods, Metal and Auto stocks wiped off the gains in FMCG and Consumer Durables shares. The sentiments were dampened with Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor H.R. Khan stating that India's inflation has a 'long way' to go before it eases because of high input costs, while the reasons for elevated food price inflation remain 'structural'. Moreover, Khan also attributed to geo-political issues and tepid global recovery as reasons enough for RBI’s cautious approach and underscored that India’s Apex Bank just could-not be an outlier, particularly, in terms of inflation from among the BRIC countries. However, losses remained capped as Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said that the ministry-expansion will help improve the focus on economic recovery. Some support also came in from reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 2537.13 crore on November 07, 2014. In scrip specific development, shares of Engineers India have declined after reporting a sharp 47% year-on-year (yoy) drop in net profit at Rs 58.78 crore for the second quarter ended September 2014 (Q2), due to lower operational income. On the other hand, Jaypee Infratech rose after the company posted a 11.67% increase in its net profit to Rs 115.90 crore as compared to Rs 103.78 crore last year same quarter.
 
Meanwhile, some traders remained on the sidelines and refrained from any buying activity ahead of key macroeconomic data to be released in the week. The government will issue consumer and wholesale price inflation data for October on September 12 and September 14, 2014.
 
On the global front, Asian stock markets were mostly higher after the release of strong U.S. jobs figures and weekend data showing China's exports remained on an upward trend. US employers added 214,000 jobs in October, slightly below economists' median forecast of 231,000, but logging the ninth consecutive month of gains of more than 200,000, the longest stretch since 1994. Back home, Indian rupee strengthened by 17 paise to 61.45 against the dollar in early trade on increased selling of the US currency by exporters and banks amidst sustained foreign capital inflows. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2387 stocks traded, 1209 stocks advanced, while 1087 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27838.70 down by 29.93 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 28027.96 and 27818.23. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.09%, while Small cap index up by 0.08%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.44%, Consumer Durables up by 0.62%, Realty up by 0.32% and Power up by 0.04%, while Capital Goods down by 1.01%, Metal down by 0.57%, Oil & Gas down by 0.48%, Auto down by 0.39% and PSU down by 0.37% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma  up by 3.24%, ITC up by 2.14%, BHEL up by 1.53%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.02% and Coal India up by 0.96%. On the flip side, Larsen & Toubro down by 2.14%, GAIL India down by 2.08%, ONGC down by 1.73%, Tata Motors down by 1.68% and Hindalco down by 1.57% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Ahead of the G-20 nations Summit, India pitched for removal of impediments to movement of services within the group of 20 most advanced and fast developing member nations. Suresh Prabhu, who will be Modi’s ‘sherpa’ at the Summit, emphasised the need for increasing spending in infrastructure and expansion of services for the economies in the group to grow by an additional 2 percent over next five years.

By adding further, Suresh Prabhu has stated that other issue, which India will discuss, is energy, another big challenge which the world is going to face. Highlighting importance of energy, Prabhu said that G-20, with 45 percent of the global GDP, could really contribute significantly in the changing energy mix of the world. The G-20 nations should focus on fully utilization of renewable sources to generate efficient energy.

To curb tax avoidance by companies, India is keen to go ahead with a global tax pact and is expected to push for negotiations of some provisions of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) agreement at the meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the two-day G-20 Summit on November 15-16 in Brisbane, Australia.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8,329.95 down by 7.05 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 8,383.05 and 8,320.75. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 3.24%, ITC up by 2.22%, Bank of Baroda up by 1.96%, DLF up by 1.71% and BHEL up by 1.67%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel & Power down by 3.10%, Larsen & Toubro down by 2.18%, GAIL India down by 2.08%, Hindalco down by 1.79% and ONGC down by 1.73% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 0.31%, KOSPI Index surged 1.03%, Straits Times gained 0.59%, Shanghai Composite soared 1.18%, Taiwan Weighted increased 1.45% and Hang Seng was up 1.67%. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 0.7% and Jakarta Composite was down by 0.13%.