Benchmarks trade lower in early deals on penultimate day of F&O expiry

Indian equity benchmarks are trading lower in early deals on Wednesday as investors opted to remain on sidelines on penultimate day of F&O expiry. Depreciation in Indian rupee too dampened the sentiments. The Indian rupee were marginally lower at 63.22 per dollar against previous close of 63.15 per dollar. However, the dollar dropped to an eight-week low overseas, after a weak US consumer confidence report. Meanwhile, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said that India is 'a very frustratingly robust democracy' where unleashing “big bang” reforms is not easy given the multiple centers of veto power

On the global front, the US markets made a mixed closing in last session and while the Dow and S&P ended at fresh highs the Nasdaq ended marginally lower ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement. Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time, led by Chinese and Hong Kong markets which are down by around a percent on profit taking, although there was speculation that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero for longer after weak consumer confidence data.

Back home, on the sectoral front, healthcare, consumer durables and realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while FMCG, oil and gas and infrastructure remained the top losers on the BSE. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1177 shares on the gaining side against 693 shares on the losing side while 63 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27329.20, down by 67.18 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 27287.41 and 27420.99. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.19%, while Small cap index was up by 0.77%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.98%, Consumer Durables up by 0.46%, Realty up by 0.44%, Bankex up by 0.23% and Power up by 0.03% while, FMCG down by 0.74%, Oil & Gas down by 0.49%, Infrastructure down by 0.43%, PSU down by 0.30% and TECK down by 0.18% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 1.91%, Wipro up by 1.70%, Sun Pharma up by 1.33%, Tata Steel up by 1.14% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.10%. On the flip side, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.39%, HDFC down by 1.65%, Tata Motors down by 1.48%, ITC down by 1.42% and BHEL down by 1.01% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal in a written reply to Rajya Sabha highlighted that the surplus land, which was no longer required by coal companies to be returned to state governments or be used for building solar power plants. The coal minister stated that the government after examining the issue of amending coal bearing areas (Acquisition and Development) Act to return the mined out land and the land acquired, found the land to be in excess of actual requirement to the state government for utilization after reclaiming them.

He highlighted that the protection of such land against the encroachment and maintenance involves unnecessary expenditure on part of coal companies, however if such land was transferred to concerned state governments then they could decide on the appropriate utilization of such land, which could probably be used for afforestation, public utility services, renewable energy projects, among other things.

However, the minister also emphasized that his ministry also was considering setting up solar energy plants on such lands. Notably, the government has set an ambitious target of generating 1,00,000 MW of solar power projects by 2022.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8262.20, down by 23.40 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 8252.20 and 8291.40. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Axis Bank up by 1.93% and Lupin up by 1.79% and GAIL India up by 1.36% and Sun Pharma up by 1.34% and Wipro up by 1.31%. On the flip side, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.64%, HDFC down by 1.88%, Tata Motors down by 1.59%, ITC down by 1.56% and BPCL down by 1.48% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the red; Hang Seng decreased 132.43 points or 0.47% to 28,310.32, Jakarta Composite tumbled 114.5 points or 2.18% to 5,127.66, Taiwan Weighted dropped 77.09 points or 0.77% to 9,879.74, Shanghai Composite slipped 15.79 points or 0.35% to 4,460.43, KOSPI Index shed 10.27 points or 0.48% to 2,137.40, Straits Times dipped 8.75 points or 0.25% to 3,486.34 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 7.88 points or 0.42% to 1,847.18. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 75.63 points or 0.38% to 20,058.95.