Markets trade near intradays low, led by realty, consumer durables and banking

Indian markets continue to reel under pressure with across the board selling as the trade proceeds to second half, both the benchmarks were trading near their intra days low. There has been no recovery attempt so far with the markets continuously losing ground. Traders apart from the global growth concern, seem to be worried about the rise in trade deficit. India’s trade deficit widened to the highest in 18 months in November to $16.86 billion, compared with $9.57 billion a year earlier and $13.35 billion in October, due to increased gold imports.back on street, all the sectoral indices barring IT & Tech were trading with considerable losses led by realty, consumer durables and banking. The domestic currency has weakened further and has given a reason to the IT stocks to rejoice. The broader markets too were reeling in red underperforming the benchmarks by around a percent.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26898.34, down by 421.22 points or 1.54% after trading in a range of 26891.75 and 27199.37. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 2.14%, while Small cap index slumped by 2.61%.

The two gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.59%, TECK up by 0.87% while, Metal down by 3.40%, Realty down by 2.94%, Bankex down by 2.51%, PSU down by 2.26%, Consumer Durables down by 2.08% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 2.16%, Infosys up by 0.97% and Wipro up by 0.66%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 6.78%, Sesa Sterlite down by 5.42%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 3.93%, ICICI Bank down by 3.91% and ONGC down by 3.18% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, exerting pressure on country’s external sector as well as domestic currency, India’s trade deficit widened to 18-month high of $16.86 billion in month of November, as compared to $9.57 in the same month previous year and $13.36 billion in the previous month October. India’s trade deficit during the first eight months of current fiscal too widened to $100.61 billion as against $96.89 billion in the same period of previous financial year.

During November, trade deficit widened to around double on annual bias as merchandise imports grew at a faster clip due to a sudden spike in the import of gold. India’s imports during November rose by 26.79% y-o-y to $42.82 billion due to the six-fold jump in gold imports. Inward shipments of gold rose by 570% y-o-y to $5.61 billion during the reported month because of the low base, as imports in November 2013 were low due to restrictions imposed by the Government. High gold imports also steepened the increase in non-oil imports to 49.6% y-o-y at $31.10 billion in the reported month. Conversely, oil imports bill fell by 9.7% y-o-y to $11.71 billion in November due to the decline in global crude oil prices. During April-November FY15, India’s imports grew by 4.65% to $316.37 billion from $302.32 billion reported in the same period of previous fiscal.

However, domestic overseas shipments have shown some recovery as exports grew by four month high rate at 7.27% to $25.96 billion in November from $24.20 billion in the same month of previous year. The exports of engineering goods increased by 30% to $6.6 billion and gems and jewellery exports grew by 44% to $3.7 billion in the reported month.  During April-November FY15, the value of India’s overseas shipments increased by 5.02% to $215.76 billion from $205.44 billion in the same period of previous financial year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8098.70, down by 120.90 points or 1.47% after trading in a range of 8098.55 and 8189.35. There were 7 stocks advancing against 43 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech. up by 3.48%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.98%, TCS up by 2.35%, BPCL up by 1.63% and Infosys up by 0.88%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 6.76%, Sesa Sterlite down by 5.17%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 4.17%, Bank Of Baroda down by 4.10% and Dr Reddys Lab down by 4.04% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were mostly in red barring the Shanghai Composite which was up by 21.85 points or 0.74% to 2,975.27. On the other hand, Hang Seng plunged by 325.82 points or 1.41% to 22,702.03, Nikkei 225 lost 298.61 points or 1.75% to 16,800.79, Jakarta Composite was down by 94.5 points or 1.85% to 5,013.93, Straits Times declined by 62.22 points or 1.89% to 3,231.92, KOSPI Index was lower by 16.76 points or 0.87% to 1,903.60, Taiwan Weighted decreased by 13.95 points or 0.16% to 8,971.68 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 6.51 points or 0.38% to 1,690.80.