Benchmarks trade lower on expiry day of January F&O series

Indian equity benchmarks have made a somber start on expiry day of January F&O series and are trading with a cut of around half a percent in early deals on Thursday amid feeble global cues. The US markets extended their sell-off in the last session, with the Dow falling to its lowest closing level in over a month. The major cause of the fall was sharp drop in crude prices, which fell to its lowest levels in almost six years; traders even ignored the batch of largely upbeat earnings news. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time with some indices declining by over half a percent with Japanese market retreating from a seven-week high, tailing US market and as oil traded below $45 a barrel.

Back home, shares of telecom companies weakened after the Cabinet on Wednesday approved a higher base price for 3G spectrum auction. The Cabinet approved a base price of Rs 3,705 crore per megahertz (MHz) for 3G spectrum auction, a move which would help the government garner over Rs 1 lakh crore along with sale of other mobile frequencies. However, losses remained capped up to certain extent on report that foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities worth Rs 1,723 crore on January 28, as per provisional stock exchange data. 

On the sectoral front, realty, oil and gas and capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, public sector undertaking and technology remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1029 shares on the gaining side against 826 shares on the losing side while 60 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29431.52, down by 127.66 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 29378.30 and 29526.33. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.15%, while Small cap index up by 0.18%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.20%, Oil & Gas up by 0.42%, Capital Goods up by 0.36% and Consumer Durables up by 0.19% while, Metal down by 1.00%, PSU down by 0.72%, TECK down by 0.45%, Infrastructure down by 0.39% and Bankex down by 0.32% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Industries up by 1.22%, HDFC Bank up by 1.12%, Wipro up by 0.77%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.77% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.61%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 3.97%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.19%, HDFC down by 2.16%, Sun Pharma down by 1.68% and ICICI Bank down by 1.62% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with an intention of making service sector more competitive, the government is working on reform measures in areas like legal and healthcare and is soon expected to come out with a Cabinet note for this. Towards this development, the government, couple of years ago had created inter-ministerial entity for identifying and working on reforms which are required in various service areas in terms of legislation, practice, procedures, etc. Presently, it is rolling out consultation at the inter-ministerial level and committee of secretaries and would finally take it to the logical Cabinet decision.

Notably, though India has implemented several free trade agreements in goods and services, but services exports still face issues related with mutual recognition agreements. Also, foreign professionals in legal and accountancy services have been barred to work in India.

While, the government continues to work on healthcare and education sector, its stand on the issue of multi brand retail remains pretty clear since there are no proposal for waiting for the government response.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8879.35, down by 34.95 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 8861.25 and 8902.05. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 1.56%, Reliance Industries up by 1.21%, DLF up by 1.10%, HDFC Bank up by 1.08% and Ambuja Cement up by 0.88%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 3.87%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.19%, HDFC down by 2.12%, Sun Pharma down by 1.70% and ICICI Bank down by 1.65% were the top losers.

Asian equity indices were trading mostly in the red; Hang Seng declined 292.57 points or 1.18% to 24,569.24, Nikkei 225 slipped 86.95 points or 0.49% to 17,708.78, Taiwan Weighted decreased 86.81 points or 0.91% to 9,424.11, Shanghai Composite dropped 37.9 points or 1.15% to 3,267.84, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI shed 12.16 points or 0.68% to 1,783.72, Jakarta Composite dipped 8.39 points or 0.16% to 5,260.46 and KOSPI Index was down by 3.87 points or 0.2% to 1,957.71. On the flip side, Straits Times was up by 2.62 points or 0.08% to 3,421.77.