Benchmarks trade lower in early deals

Extending their previous session’s downfall, Indian equity indices are trading in red in early deals on Tuesday, as investors remained on sidelines ahead of expiry of the May derivatives contracts on Thursday. However, losses remained capped as some support came with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that he was confident that Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime would come into force from April 2016. He has said that passage of GST and the land acquisition bill would be the priorities of the government in the next session of the Parliament. Meanwhile, FICCI has said that restoration of investor confidence and establishment of ‘Brand India’ are the biggest achievements of the Narendra Modi government.

On the global front, the US markets remained closed on Monday, unable to give any cues to the other global markets, while the Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time, after the Singapore’s economy grew more than initially estimated last quarter as demand for the island’s exports improved amid a recovery in the US. Hong Kong stocks were trading at a seven-year high.

Back home, on the sectoral front, infrastructure, technology and metal witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while capital goods, power and oil and gas remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 930 shares on the gaining side against 768 shares on the losing side while 74 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27594.68, down by 49.20 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 27543.24 and 27675.94. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.27%, while Small cap index added 0.09%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were INFRA up by 1.20%, TECK up by 0.35%, Metal up by 0.29%, Consumer Durables up by 0.28%, while Capital Goods down by 0.41%, Power down by 0.33%, Oil & Gas down by 0.29%, Realty down by 0.24%, FMCG down by 0.20% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 1.49%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.45%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.94%, Vedanta up by 0.88% and Coal India up by 0.84%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 1.32%, NTPC down by 1.26%, Tata Motors down by 1.20%, Hindalco down by 1.04% and BHEL down by 0.98% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in a move which would give a boost to the ship breaking industry, the government has relaxed norms for import of high-speed diesel and light diesel oil through old ships and vessels that are coming to India for the purpose of breaking. Earlier such imports were allowed through state trading enterprises.

In a separate public notice, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) want the manufacturer or the exporter of drug formulations to print the barcodes as per global standard at different packaging levels, which would help them track and trace their products.

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data on the product it is attached to and facilitates its tracing and tracking. Notably, the government has extended the deadline again to affix barcodes on primary level packaging by pharmaceutical companies till further orders.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8359.10, down by 11.15 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 8337.50 and 8378.90. There were 21 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 2.28% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.48% and GAIL India up by 1.24% and Vedanta up by 1.18% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.85%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.35%, Sun Pharma down by 1.37%, Tata Motors down by 1.23%, NTPC down by 1.12% and BHEL down by 0.92% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 4.52 points or 0.26% to 1,771.90, Nikkei 225 rose 8.41 points or 0.04% to 20,422.18, Taiwan Weighted gained 26.75 points or 0.28% to 9,671.92, Jakarta Composite surged 53.04 points or 1% to 5,341.41, Shanghai Composite soared 78.93 points or 1.64% to 4,892.73 and Hang Seng was up by 398.8 points or 1.42% to 28,391.63.

On the flip side, KOSPI Index decreased 4.4 points or 0.21% to 2,141.70 and Straits Times was down by 1.4 points or 0.04% to 3,459.45.