Markets continue to languish in negative territory; Nifty trades above 8850 mark

In an extremely dismal session of trade, local equity markets continue to languish into negative territory lacking any positive trigger which could lift benchmark equity indices higher. However, market recovered from day’s low point on bit of bargain buying activities, while gains of broader indices also aided the sentiment to some extent. Both midcap and small indices were trading higher with gains of around half a percent. Meanwhile, Sensex and Nifty after recovering from day’s low point were trading above psychologically crucial 29,300 and 8,850 levels respectively, albeit with losses of around half a percent.

On the global front, stocks in Asia rose Wednesday as fears eased over Greece leaving the euro-zone. Closer home, most of the sectoral indices on BSE were trading in positive territory, however, stocks from Realty, Public Sector Undertaking and Power counters were the prominent gainers of the session. On the flip side, much of the drubbing was witnessed by stocks from Oil & Gas, Information Technology and Technology counters. The overall market breadth on BSE was in favour of advances which thumped declines in the ratio of 1395:1206; while 111 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29327.43, down by 134.84 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 29178.26 and 29462.09. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.35%, while Small cap index gained 0.60%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.30%, PSU up by 0.52%, Power up by 0.47%, FMCG up by 0.34%, Capital Goods up by 0.28% while, Oil & Gas down by 1.38%, IT down by 0.90%, TECK down by 0.84%, Consumer Durables down by 0.65%, Metal down by 0.34% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 3.06%, ITC up by 1.13%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 0.90%, Hindalco up by 0.74% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.61%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.46%, ICICI Bank down by 1.64%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.46%, Wipro down by 1.35% and Tata Power down by 1.25% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has approved eleven proposals of foreign direct investment (FDI) amounting to Rs 1075.91 crore. The approvals include Solar Arise India projects involving FDI of Rs 216.01 crore, SeQuent Scientific, Mumbai involving FDI of upto Rs 400 crore and proposal of BLP Wind Assets Holding for an amount of Rs 371 crore for setting up a joint venture firm for making downstream investments in the renewable energy sector. Also, JP Morgan Asset Management (Asia) Inc USA has got approval for the acquisition of remaining 25 per cent held by JP Morgan India in the joint venture set up in 2006 by the two companies, entailing investment up to Rs 80.13 crore.

On the other hand the board sent two proposals relating to Aurobindo Pharma, Hyderabad and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Mumbai for consideration of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to raise the cap of foreign institutional investor (FII) holding to 49 per cent, from 35.07 per cent at present. The investment involved in each of the proposal is above Rs 1,200 crore.

FIPB rejected foreign investment application of Johnson and Johnson proposal seeking deletion of the standard pharma conditions, stipulated in the approved letter and proposal of Singapore-based AppDynamics Asia Pacific Pte for replacing of partners of the proposed LLP, as the existing have tendered their resignation.

Recently, the government has eased the procedures for companies seeking approval for foreign direct investment; they can now e-file a single copy application with the FIPB. The applicants would also get SMS/email alerts related to the queries raised by the administrative ministries, inclusion of the proposal in the scheduled FIPB meeting and decisions.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8863.80, down by 31.50 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 8816.30 and 8899.95. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bank Of Baroda up by 3.39%, BHEL up by 3.09%, PNB up by 1.54%, Zee Entertainment up by 1.30% and Indusind Bank up by 1.29%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.56%, ICICI Bank down by 1.68%, HCL Tech. down by 1.52%, Wipro down by 1.44% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.32% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading higher; with Jakarta Composite trading up by 30.21 points or 0.56% to 5,420.66 and Nikkei 225 trading higher by 67.51 points.