Post Session: Quick Review

Local equity markets, which see-sawed between positive and negative territories, finally settled in the favour of latter, a day ahead of the April derivatives contract expiry. Continued selling by foreign portfolio investors amid fresh worries on retrospective taxes, and a delay in earnings recovery mainly dragged the markets lower. Sentiments also took a hit after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to delay a bill that would make farm land acquisition easier, following anger over rising rural distress and the suicide of a farmer in India's capital. Besides, daunting global set-up also added to pessimistic environment. By close of trade, both Sensex and Nifty taking a knock of over three fourth of a percent settled below psychologically crucial 27,200 and 8,250 levels respectively. However, the same session was extremely yielding for broader indices, which went home with gains in the range of 0.30-1.15%.

On the global front, Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday as investors remained cautious ahead of US growth data and the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting. The US central bank will wrap up its two-day policy meeting later in the day and is expected to indicate whether it is on track to raise interest rates. Meanwhile, stocks fell in Europe on Wednesday, following Asian stocks lower also, as investors digested a batch of mixed corporate results from bank BBVA and UK retailer Next among others.

Closer home, most of the sectoral indices on BSE concluded into negative territory, major brunt of profit-booking was witnessed by stocks from FMCG, Infrastructure and Auto counters, which were the top losers of the session. On the flip side, stocks from Realty, Consumer Durable and Healthcare counters were the prominent gainers of the session. In stock specific activities, sugar stocks like Bajaj Hindusthan, Dhampur Sugar, Dwarikesh Sugar, Rana Sugars, Triveni Engineering, Uttam Sugar and Shree Renuka gained 1-5 percent as the government is going to raise sugar import duty to 40 percent from 25 percent to prevent influx of cheap imports. Additionally, telecom shares firmed eased on profit taking post the announcement of their earnings on Tuesday. Bharti Airtel was down 0.8% while Idea Cellular shed nearly 4%. Besides, banking shares ended higher after private sector lender Axis Bank reported an 18% growth in its net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2015, led by strong growth in its interest income. The bank reported a net profit of Rs 2,181 crore for the January-March quarter against Rs 1,842 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of advances which thumped advances in the ratio of 1523:1187; while 101 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex concluded at 27225.93, down by 170.45 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 27176.54 and 27438.96. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in the green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.39%, while Small cap index surged by 1.10%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.92%, Consumer Durables up by 0.82%, Healthcare up by 0.57%, Bankex up by 0.45% and IT up by 0.43%, while FMCG down by 1.63%, Infrastructure down by 0.83%, Auto down by 0.57%, Oil & Gas down by 0.51% and Metal down by 0.40% were the losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 4.67%, Wipro up by 1.89%, GAIL India up by 1.71%, Sun Pharma up by 1.54% and ICICI Bank up by 1.18%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 4.08%, ITC down by 2.81%, HDFC down by 2.34%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.98% and Reliance Industries down by 1.82% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has suggested that the government in order to lift industrial share to 25% of the GDP should infuse modern, green and latest technology to its industrial/manufacturing base, more so, in the SME sector. However, the committee did express apprehension over the ambitious goals of the national manufacturing policy (NMP) 2011 of enhancing the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25 per cent and creation of 100 million jobs over a decade and said that this could be adversely affected given the extremely slow pace of progress made under the policy.

It also highlighted that the scheme for implementation of NMP was yet to be notified and that its notification was pending approval of all the components under the policy. The committee noted that capacity constraints in critical infrastructure sectors such as electricity and railways was the reason responsible for reduced profitability of manufacturing industries which are logistics intensive, while it also pointed that complex and complicated regulatory regime including land, environmental clearances, supply of critical inputs like coal, gas that increased risks of project implementation also led to low private sector investment in manufacturing activities in the recent years.

The committee suggested that Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal agency for the industrial health of the country to vigorously tackle all infrastructural bottlenecks and the discouraging business environment existing in the country. It suggested DIPP to closely monitor the projects' progress and pursue the concerned ministries and departments and states for expeditious action so as to ensure there are no cost/time overruns.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility declined 1.00% at 17.23 from its previous close of 17.41 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty settled at 8239.75, down by 45.85 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 8219.20 and 8308.20. There were 14 stocks advancing against 36 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Ambuja Cement up by 3.36%, Axis Bank up by 3.17%, GAIL India up by 2.22%, HCL Tech up by 1.92% and Wipro up by 1.77%. On the flip side, Idea Cellular down by 5.37%, Bharti Airtel down by 3.34%, ITC down by 2.78%, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.29% and HDFC down by 2.21% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European Markets were trading mostly in the green; Germany's DAX rose 0.01% and UK's FTSE 100 was up by 0.05%, while France's CAC was down by 0.12%.

The Asian markets closed mostly in red on Wednesday, while Shanghai Composite closed marginally in green. Japanese stock exchange is closed today on account of ‘Showa Day’ holiday. China will reduce import tariffs on some consumer goods by the end of June to help boost domestic spending and support the economy. The State Council, China’s Cabinet, stated that the decision was made in order to satisfy rising consumer demand but did not specify which consumer goods would benefit from reduced tariffs. The move comes as annual economic growth in the world's second biggest economy slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent in the first quarter, hurt by a housing slump and a downturn in investment and manufacturing. The outstanding amount of China’s dollar-denominated Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) programme rose to $73.6 billion as of April 28, slightly higher than $72.1 billion in March. The QFII scheme was created years ago by China to allow foreigners to invest in Chinese capital markets. Hong Kong Trade Balance fell to a seasonally adjusted -46.2B, from -35.9B in the preceding month.