Bourses surrender early gains; trade flat with negative bias

Erasing all the early gains and reversing trend, local equity markets were trading flat with negative bias in absence of any positive cues and also as weak Indian currency which hit a month low level on incremental dollar demand from corporate, weighed on the sentiments. Local barometer gauges which were trading higher in early deals on hopes of rate cut by RBI in its upcoming monetary policy in December after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pitching for rate cuts from RBI stated that lower cost of capital would give good fillip to the economy, lost all their euphoria in afternoon deals. At day’s low, both Sensex and Nifty were trading below psychologically crucial 28,150 and 8,450 levels respectively. However, broader indices staging smart performance were up with gains in the range of 0.45%-0.85%.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly higher on hopes of more stimulus in Europe, which were underpinned by comments from European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, who said the ECB was ready to provide more stimulus. However, bit of caution was witnessed ahead of the release of the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting this week amidst expectation that Fed minutes would continue to show optimism about the U.S. economy that would keep the U.S. central bank on track to raise interest rates sometime next year.

Closer home, most of the sectoral indices on BSE were holding in green, nevertheless stocks from Infrastructure, Power and Metal counters were the prominent gainers of the session. Besides, Sugar stocks were rallying on hopes of getting subsidy for sugar exports. Balrampur Chini , Shree Renuka ,  Bajaj Hindusthan and  Sakthi Sugars were up 8-10 percent each  after reports suggested that Prime Ministers Office (PMO) is likely to meet tomorrow to discuss subsidy for sugar exports. On the flip side, stocks from Realty, Information Technology and Fast moving Consumer Goods were the top losers of the session. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of advances which were outnumbering declines in the ratio of 1625:1157; while 113 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28176.42, down by 1.46 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 28176.42 and 28282.85. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.48%, while Small cap index up by 0.85%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were INFRA up by 1.25%, Power up by 1.19%, Metal up by 0.99%, Capital Goods up by 0.82% and Auto up by 0.53% while, IT down by 0.57%, FMCG down by 0.51%, Realty down by 0.49% and Consumer Durables down by 0.02% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sesa Sterlite up by 3.77%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.13%, NTPC up by 1.41%, GAIL India up by 1.28% and BHEL up by 0.92%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.97%, Hindalco down by 1.23%, Infosys down by 0.80%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.64% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.63% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the surging gold import that has led India’s trade deficit in October increasing by 26.06 percent at $13.35 billion, from $10.59 billion in the corresponding month of last year and which is putting pressure on the Current Account Deficit, has made the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to discuss the matter with the government to curb its imports.Gold has seen a sharp surge in the recent months, in October alone gold import surged almost four times to $4.17 billion from $1.09 billion same month a year ago.

RBI Deputy Governor S S Mundra was reported saying that a policy relook is warranted with the surge in gold import and further view will be taken after the discussions of the RBI and the government. Gold imports have touched 150 tonnes in October, as against 24 tonnes a year ago. Worried over the rising trend in gold imports, the government last week held a meeting to discuss ways to curb the import of the precious metal.

Last year in August the previous government had imposed severe restrictions on gold imports and raised import duty to 10 percent in order to check burgeoning current account deficit and sliding rupee, but in in May this year it, eased certain rules and allowed private agencies to import gold under 80:20 scheme.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8426.00, down by 4.75 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 8422.55 and 8454.50. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sesa Sterlite up by 3.55%, PNB up by 2.16%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.00% , Power Grid Corpn up by 1.50% and NTPC up by 1.20%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 2.19%, Hindalco down by 1.39%, DLF down by 1.15%, Ultratech Cement down by 1.10% and Infosys down by 1.03% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in mostly green; with FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI trading higher by 6.78 points or 0.38% to 1,813.26; Straits Times edging higher by 14.8 points or 0.45% to 3,303.47; KOSPI Index gaining 23.38 points or 1.2% to 1,967.01; Jakarta Composite advancing 26.6 points or 0.53% to 5,080.54; Nikkei 225 adding 370.26 points or 2.18% to 17,344.06.

On the flip side, Hang Seng was down by 220.76 points or 0.93% to 23,576.32; Taiwan Weighted shed 25.32 points or 0.28% to 8,859.07 and Shanghai Composite slid 21.39 points or 0.86% to 2,452.62.