Benchmarks add losses; Sensex slips below 27900 mark

Indian bourses adding losses, continued to trade in red in the late morning session, with the Sensex losing over 200 points and Nifty falling below the 8500 level, weighed down by sustained selling by investors amid a weak global trend. Sentiment on the street further weakened as traders remained wary ahead of expiry of March series derivatives contracts later today. However, losses remained capped as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has expressed his concern over slow growth of manufacturing sector and promised to step up public spending on infrastructure, ease entry barriers for overseas investors and push Goods and Services Tax (GST) to boost economic expansion. Some support also came in from reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 813.19 crore on March 25, 2015. Meanwhile, Stock prices may remain subdued to weak until the end of the current financial year on 31 March as traders and investors resort to year-end profit booking.

On global front, Asian equities were mostly lower on Thursday following a sharp selloff on Wall Street overnight and an escalation of political turmoil in Yemen. Furthermore, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that orders to U.S. factories for long-lasting manufactured goods fell in February for the third time in four months. Back home, Indian rupee weakened by 31 paise to 62.64 against the US dollar in early trade on month-end demand for the American currency from banks and importers.

Back on street, stocks from Banking, Auto and FMCG counters were supporting the markets’ uptrend, while those from Metal, PSU and Power counters were adding to the underlying cautious undertone. In scrip specific development, shares of Torrent Power have surged after the government approved pooling of imported gas and domestic gas for gas based power plants. On the flip side, shares of NIIT Technologies have declined as its arm entered into dispute with client in APAC region.

The market breadth on BSE was negative, out of 2240 stocks traded, 823 stocks advanced, while 1327 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27882.28, down by 229.55 points or 0.82% after trading in a range of 27876.15 and 27997.14. There were 10 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.26%, while Small cap index down by 0.45%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 0.81%, Power up by 0.36%, INFRA up by 0.31%, FMCG up by 0.12% and Oil & Gas up by 0.05% while, Bankex down by 0.88%, IT down by 0.85%, Metal down by 0.70%, Consumer Durables down by 0.54% and TECK down by 0.45% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 1.78%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.65%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.20%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.70% and GAIL India up by 0.68%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 3.71%, Infosys down by 1.64%, Wipro down by 1.44%, Cipla down by 1.42% and HDFC Bank down by 1.34% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has expressed his concern over slow growth of manufacturing sector and promised to step up public spending on infrastructure, ease entry barriers for overseas investors and push Goods and Services Tax (GST) to boost economic expansion. The Minister said that while the agriculture and services sectors have been doing well, “manufacturing is a challenge” and the government is trying to resolve the 'legacy' issues hampering development of infrastructure sector.

The minister further stated that our manufacturing sector is challenging and it is here that we have to actually invent the key engine of growth and concentration therefore is on 'Make in India', ability to try and device various methods of financing infrastructure. He expressed the hope that the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the GST, new indirect tax regime, would be passed in the next leg of the budget session beginning on April 20.

FM stressed that the government was committed to giving a push to infrastructure development, as in the Finance Bill, there was a proposal to pass on a substantial part in terms of cess for highway authorities. He added that with liquidity in the hands of highway authority, “incomplete projects can also be assisted by them through some fund mechanism.” Jaitley also pitched for a low interest rate regime and expressed the hope that RBI would reduce the interest rate which will give a boost to the manufacturing sector, he also defended the land acquisition bill saying it would benefit the rural India by promoting industrial activity in non-urban centres.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8470.30, down by 60.50 points or 0.71% after trading in a range of 8463.25 and 8499.45. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 2.80%, BHEL up by 1.71%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.65%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.31% and Asian Paints up by 0.88%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 3.79%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.70%, Wipro down by 1.69%, Infosys down by 1.54% and HDFC Bank down by 1.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets trade mostly in the red; Nikkei 225 declined 1.32%, Taiwan Weighted decreased 0.78%, KOSPI Index shed 0.88%, Jakarta Composite slipped 0.06% and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 0.08%. On the flip side, Straits Times rose 0.34%, Shanghai Composite increased 0.33% and Hang Seng was up by 0.14%.