Benchmarks snap three days gaining streak

Snapping their three days gaining streak, Indian equity benchmarks ended the choppy day of trade with marginal losses on Monday as investors opted to book some profit off the table after couple of rallies. Domestic bourses after a positive start turned choppy and even went on to test important psychological 28,300 (Sensex) and 8,550 (Nifty) levels, but the key gauges got some support near those intraday low levels as they trimmed their losses from thereon as investors continued hunt for fundamentally strong stocks. Overall, sentiment on the street remained down-beat as marketmen remained on sidelines eying the monsoon session that begins tomorrow in the Parliament. The NDA government will introduce eight new bills and take up 11 pending bills, including the controversial Land bill and the GST bill, for consideration and passage.

Traders also remained cautious ahead of earnings to be released later this week of index heavyweights including Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC Bank. Further, the progress of monsoons was closely watched by the market participants. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that there was 8% nation-wide deficiency in monsoon till Sunday. Though, it has also said that the widespread monsoon showers over Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and the North-Eastern states on Sunday are expected to somewhat make up for the pan-India rain deficiency.

On the global front, European counters have made a firm start and were trading with traction in early deals, with Greece fears receding further as the country's banks re-opened and with Dutch chemical firm OCI surging on merger talks. Asian markets ended mostly in red, though Chinese benchmark, erasing early losses, ended higher on Monday, after the country's securities regulator reaffirmed its support for the market, denying a media report that the government was studying how to end its bailout.

Back home, depreciation in Indian rupee too dampened the sentiments. Rupee was trading at 63.60 per dollar as compared with its previous close of 63.47 per dollar. Selling in banking counter too dampened the sentiments after government decided to keep banks out of the composite foreign investment cap. Even though there was report that Finance Ministry will seek Parliament's nod for the infusion of Rs 12000 crore funds into the PSU banks. For the current fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 7,940 crore in the Budget for capital infusion in state-owned banks and the said infusion will be in addition to budget allocation. On the flip side, Stocks related to Gold and jewellary space remained on buyers’ radar after precious metals were routed in international markets, as gold sank to the lowest in more than five years amid prospects for higher US rates and after China said it held less metal in reserves than expected.

The NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty declined marginally and hold its psychological 8,600 support level, while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index -- Sensex dropped by over forty points to finish below the psychological 28,450 mark. Broader markets, however, outperformed benchmarks and ended the session with a gain of around one third of a percent. The market breadth remained in favour of advances, as there were 1,545 shares on the gaining side against 1,278 shares on the losing side while 105 shares remain unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex declined by 43.19 points or 0.15% to 28420.12, while the CNX Nifty lost 6.40 points or 0.07% to 8603.45.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low 28549.13 and 28319.83, respectively. The BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.27%, while Small cap index up by 0.40%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 0.54%, Consumer Durables up by 0.28%, TECK up by 0.27%, Healthcare up by 0.25% and IT up by 0.19%, while Realty down by 1.92%, Metal down by 0.51%, PSU down by 0.35%, Power down by 0.33% and Bankex down by 0.33% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up by 1.91%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.09%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.98%, TCS up by 0.79% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.72%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.89%, Vedanta down by 1.44%, SBI down by 1.37%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.25% and BHEL down by 1.03% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari  has said that as a part of efforts to boost road infrastructure for faster connectivity, the Centre is planning to start work on 10 world-class express highways on the pattern of Mumbai-Pune Express Highway, which will not only reduce travel time but also propel country's economic growth. He also said that most of the proposed ten projects including the about Rs 6,000 crore 260-km Bengaluru-Chennai expressway will be concrete cement highways.

The proposed projects include Nagpur-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, Baroda-Mumbai, Katra-Amritsar and Ludhiana-Delhi. Gadkari said that the Nagpur-Mumbai express highway, connecting two major cities Nagpur and Aurangabad in Maharashtra with capital city Mumbai, will also save significant time. Ludhiana-Delhi expressway is proposed on new alignment linking the national Capital with Ludhiana, which would also have a separate node to connect Chandigarh and the same is likely to reduce distance between Delhi and Ludhiana by 50 km.

The minister further stated that all these express highways are going to be world class matching the quality and specifications in advanced nations and once completed would result in huge savings in fuel cost. Gadkari said his Ministry is committed to contributing at least 2 per cent to the GDP besides aimed at reducing accidents by more than 50 per cent in the next two years.

The CNX Nifty touched a high and low 8,624.10 and 8,559.00 respectively.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ultratech Cement up by 4.16%, Asian Paints up by 3.12%, BPCL up by 2.70%, Grasim Industries up by 1.98% and Idea up by 1.82%. On the flip side, PNB down by 2.80%, Bank of Baroda down by 2.24%, Cairn India down by 2.08% ACC down by 2.01% and Tata Motors down by 1.88% were the top losers.

European Markets were trading in the green; UK's FTSE was up by 0.44%, Germany’s DAX was up by 1.03% and France’s CAC was up by 1.09%.

Asian markets closed mostly in red on Monday, while the markets in Japan and Indonesia were closed for public holidays. China’s President Xi Jinping has reassured local governments that the country’s economy still enjoys a promising outlook despite downward growth pressure pegging it around seven percent. He pointed out the Chinese economy is in good condition with unchanged factors, including sound economic fundamentals, remarkable flexibility, huge potential and room for growth. Jinping added that the economy is undergoing steady restructuring with emerging sectors cropping up to lend fresh steam to drive growth. The country’s Commerce Ministry stated that growth in China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to quicken to around 4 percent in 2015 from the previous year on government efforts to improve its investment environment. China’s real estate market continued to warm in June, with fewer cities seeing new home prices drop for the fourth consecutive month. On a monthly basis, new home prices fell in 34 of the 70 cities monitored by the government in June, down from 43 in May. The Philippines ran a 86.4 billion pesos ($1.91 billion) budget suplus in the first five months of 2015, more than ten times higher than a year ago. Having targeted a deficit of 284 billion pesos for 2015, the government is under pressure to accelerate spending after growth weakened to a six-year low in the first quarter from the previous three months.