Post Session: Quick Review

Continuing their declining streak, local equity markets ended downbeat for fifth consecutive session on Thursday, which dragged both Sensex and Nifty below psychologically crucial 28,850 and 8,750 levels respectively, with losses of around quarter of a percent. The session, which once hinted of positive close turned out to be nothing short of disappointment as market-participants squared off all their positions by close of trade. Local equity markets remained in positive territory for most part of the session on account of value buying activities after four sessions of drubbing that dragged markets their lowest close in two weeks. Nevertheless, the fears of Greece default, weighed on participants’ risk appetite. Meanwhile, broader indices succumbing to selling pressure, concluded with losses of over 1%.

On the global front, Asian stocks were mostly lower on Thursday after European Central Bank said it would not accept Greek bonds as collateral- a robust early response to Athen’s efforts to renegotiate bailout terms with creditors. Meanwhile, European stocks fell on Thursday after the European Central Bank abruptly cancelled its acceptance of Greek bonds in return for funding, shifting the burden onto the country's central bank.

Closer home, most of the sectoral indices on BSE concluded into negative territory; however stocks from Information Technology, Technology and Fast Moving Consumer Goods counters were the prominent gainers of the session. On the flip side, stocks from Power, Realty and Consumer Durable counters were notable losers of the session. In stock-specific activity, shares of public market oil marketing companies slid after global crude oil prices slumped. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1557:506.The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of decliners, which thumped advances in the ratio of 1013:1890, while 113 shares remained unchanged (Provisional).

The BSE Sensex ended at 28850.97, down by 32.14 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 28753.29 and 29277.83. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in the red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 1.28%, while Small cap index down by 1.31%. (Provisional)

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.09%, TECK up by 1.34% and FMCG up by 0.59% while, Power down by 2.80%, Realty down by 2.74%, Consumer Durables down by 2.25%, Infrastructure down by 2.18% and Metal down by 1.90% were the losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 3.34%, Infosys up by 2.10%, TCS up by 1.83%, Axis Bank up by 1.69% and HDFC up by 1.11%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 7.98%, Sesa Sterlite down by 4.20%, BHEL down by 3.44%, ONGC down by 3.30% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.71% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha, has expressed concern about the rupee's appreciation against all major currencies, except the US dollar. He further stated that 'As of now, we do have to find a zone for the rupee that prevents obviously inflation, etc., in India - which is one of the things that we are concerned about - but at the same time it doesn't push out of the zone of competitiveness.' He added that the rupee's 60-65 level against the dollar is a 'good zone to be in'.

Separately, the Minister of State for Finance stated that India needs to grow at 7-8 per cent a year to create more job opportunities for young people and double the size of the economy in 10 years. Earlier Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan too had said that India should not settle for anything less than double-digit economic growth in the medium term. Sinha had stressed that Indian economy has potential to become a $ 4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years, adding that it's great time to invest in India. We are going to take India's $ 2 trillion economy to $4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years.

Indian rupee has been the strongest performing currency in 2014 and was in December last year overvalued by 10 percent compared to a basket of 36 currencies. Recently RBI governor too has expressed his concern over rupee appreciation, though he said that we are perfectly comfortable with where the rupee is. But, going forward, with the massive amount of quantitative easing in the rest of the world, there are possible dangers of us becoming uncompetitive.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility surged 3.97% at 20.84 from its previous close of 20.04 on Wednesday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty ended at 8711.70, down by 12.00 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 8683.65 and 8838.45. There were 17 stocks advancing against 32 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech up by 3.88%, BPCL up by 3.49%, Wipro up by 3.20%, Infosys up by 2.01% and Axis Bank up by 1.68%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 8.21%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 5.40%, PNB down by 4.69%, Bank of Baroda down by 4.57% and Sesa Sterlite down by 3.97% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European Markets were trading in the red; UK's FTSE 100 was down by 0.33%, France's CAC was down by 0.26% and Germany's DAX was down by 0.01%.

The Asian equity benchmarks ended mostly in red on Thursday, on overnight news that European Central Bank has decided to suspend the collateral waiver facility for Greek banks dampening investor sentiment. However, China’s central bank cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves, the first industry-wide cut in more than two and half years, as it increased efforts to shore up flagging growth in the world’s second-largest economy. The move, which came less than three months after China also cut interest rates for the first time in over two years, was widely expected by investors, who had bet that monetary policy had to be further loosened to lift economic growth from 24-year low. Indonesian GDP remained unchanged at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.01% in January compared to the preceding month. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has been slowing in recent years as the price of its key commodity exports dropped owing to weakening demand from regional powerhouse China and other major markets. Taiwanese CPI fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of -0.94%, from 0.61% in the preceding quarter.