Selling intensifies on Dalal Street; Nifty breaches 8,350 mark

Selling got intensified on Dalal Street in afternoon deals with frontline gauges breaching their crucial 8,350 (Nifty) and 27,700 (Sensex) levels. Sentiments remained dampened after the central bank’s stress test surprisingly showed private banks are likely to see a significant jump in bad loans. The Reserve Bank of India also said the probability of slippage of state electricity boards' exposure to bad loans is very high considering the implementation of new regulatory norms effective April 1, 2015. Depreciation in Indian rupee for the second day in a row on account of appreciation of the dollar overseas, too dampened investors’ sentiments.

Global cues too remained somber with European markets making a weak start. Asian markets were trading mostly in red after Greece failed again to reach an agreement with its creditors and stumbled towards a default. Back home, on the sectoral front, software, consumer durables and technology witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while realty, banking and capital goods 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 991 shares on the gaining side against 1,362 shares on the losing side, while 92 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27688.26, down by 207.71 points or 0.74% after trading in a range of 27681.56 and 27921.86. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.68%, while Small cap index lost 0.21%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.03%, Consumer Durables up by 0.91%, TECK up by 0.44% and Healthcare up by 0.03%, while Realty down by 1.29%, Bankex down by 1.22%, Capital Goods down by 1.07%, Power down by 1.07% and Infrastructure down by 1.07% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 1.51%, Cipla up by 1.34%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.29%, TCS up by 0.70% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.55%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 2.90%, Vedanta down by 2.45%, BHEL down by 2.44%, HDFC down by 2.14% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.84% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government after liberalizing FDI norms in sectors like insurance and defence to attract investments is now considering a proposal for increasing FDI limit in the media sector, from the current 26 per cent. A proposal regarding this was recently discussed in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Last year, the then Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar had said that the ministry is seeking inputs from various stakeholders on whether to allow 100 per cent FDI in news media. It has been reported that an inter-ministerial panel is now discussing the issue and the government may look at hiking the cap to 49 per cent.

FDI is allowed only up to 26 per cent in publishing of newspapers and periodicals dealing with news and current affairs through government approval route. As per data released by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the information and broadcasting (I&B) sector (including print media) in the period April 2000 – January 2015 stood at $ 3,890.94 million.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8342.70, down by 55.30 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 8339.70 and 8408.55. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech. up by 2.62%, Infosys up by 1.65%, Cipla up by 1.36%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.28% and Ultratech Cement up by 1.03%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 3.16%, BHEL down by 2.54%, Vedanta down by 2.42%, Cairn India down by 2.42% and HDFC down by 2.18% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 608.35 points or 2.24% to 26,537.40, Shanghai Composite tumbled 382.54 points or 8.45% to 4,145.24, Nikkei 225 slipped 65.25 points or 0.31% to 20,706.15, Straits Times dropped 25.62 points or 0.76% to 3,324.25, Taiwan Weighted shed 13.77 points or 0.15% to 9,462.57 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 5.11 points or 0.3% to 1,711.70.

On the flip side, KOSPI Index increased 5.2 points or 0.25% to 2,090.26 and Jakarta Composite was up by 6.93 points or 0.14% to 4,926.97.

The European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 0.75%, France’s CAC declined 0.70% and UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 0.37%.