Benchmarks trade lower in early deals on weak global cues

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the red in early deals on Thursday as investors opted to book some of their profit after previous session’s rally. However, losses remained capped as some encouragement came with Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan’s statement that government has taken steps to propel growth. He also said that investors’ unhappiness over the taxation issues could have been avoided, but once raised, they have to go through a legal process which is on.

Weakness in global cues too dampened the sentiments, the US markets continued their consolidation mood and once again ended mixed, putting a halt to the gaining streak of the Dow. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials believed it would be premature to hike interest rates in June. Asian equity indices were trading mostly in the red at this point of time after a preliminary Chinese factory gauge missed the estimates and came in at 49.1. However, the Japanese market was trading higher as yen continued to trade weak.

Back home, on the sectoral front, software, technology and consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while power, capital infrastructure and metal remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were reeling under pressure, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 772 shares on the gaining side against 985 shares on the losing side while 57 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27765.37, down by 71.84 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 27765.37 and 27911.44. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.60%, while Small cap index was lower by 0.33%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 0.45%, TECK up by 0.26%, Consumer Durables up by 0.10%, Realty up by 0.02% and Auto up by 0.01% while, Power down by 0.82%, INFRA down by 0.77%, Metal down by 0.71%, FMCG down by 0.67% and Bankex down by 0.59% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 2.57%, Tata Motors up by 0.94%, Axis Bank up by 0.60%, TCS up by 0.50% and Infosys up by 0.34%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 4.86%, Cipla down by 1.85%, Vedanta down by 1.60%, Tata Power down by 1.36% and BHEL down by 1.30% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, reiterating BJP's stand on FDI in multi-brand retail, Finance minister, Arun Jaitley has said that his government was never in favour of allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and a recent government notification only published the existing policies that was decided by the UPA government.

On May 12, the DIPP in its consolidated FDI policy document retained the previous UPA government's decision of allowing foreign retailers to open multi-brand stores with 51 per cent ownership, sparking speculations that government had now turned its side in the favour of multi-brand retail, which was its pre-election manifesto that won its commanding majority from an electorate.

BJP manifesto had said, barring the multi-brand retail sector, FDI will be allowed in sectors wherever needed for job and asset creation, infrastructure and acquisition of niche technology and specialised expertise.

Although the previous government had allowed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, notably, only one investment proposal of the UK-based Tesco so far has been cleared.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8396.00, down by 27.25 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 8388.20 and 8446.35. There were 14 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 2.09%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.62%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.05%, Tata Motors up by 0.92% and HCL Tech up by 0.87%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 4.82%, Yes Bank down by 1.96%, Cipla down by 1.84%, Vedanta down by 1.81% and Tata Power down by 1.43% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the red; Taiwan Weighted declined 100.37 points or 1.04% to 9,584.94, KOSPI Index decreased 15.82 points or 0.74% to 2,123.72, Jakarta Composite shed 12.54 points or 0.24% to 5,280.21, Hang Seng slipped 10.51 points or 0.04% to 27,574.54 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 3.32 points or 0.18% to 1,806.79.

On the flip side, Straits Times rose 0.43 points or 0.01% to 3,440.11, Shanghai Composite surged 49.81 points or 1.12% to 4,496.10 and Nikkei 225 was up by 106.14 points or 0.53% to 20,302.70.