Benchmarks make gap-down opening amid weak global cues

With a gap-down opening Indian equity markets have extended their previous session losses and are now trading with the cut of around half a percent on sustained selling activities by market-participants. Weakness in the other Asian peers weighed as investors’ sentiment remained down beat after China Caixin PMI fell to a six and a half year low citing fears about the health of China's economy.  Depreciation in Indian rupee against dollar also weighed down sentiments. The rupee weakened by 19 paise to 66.07 against the US dollar in early trade today at the Interbank Foreign Exchange due to on foreign funds outflows. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 1,052.24 crore on September 22, 2015, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges that kept pressuring the sentiments. The market may remain volatile as traders will roll over positions in the Futures & Options (F&O) segment from the near month i.e. September 2015 series to next month i.e. October 2015 series. The near month September 2015 derivatives contracts will expire on Thursday i.e. September 24, 2015. Traders were seen piling up position in Consumer Durables, Realty, Oil & Gas and Power, while selling was witnessed in Metal, Tech, FMCG, IT and Auto.

On the global front, US markets ended lower as a slump in commodity prices reignited festering worries about slowing global growth. The Asian markets were trading in red as a global sell-off triggered by the Volkswagen emissions scandal was exacerbated by weak Chinese factory data.

Closer home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below the psychological 7,800 and 25,550 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 633: 852 while 69 scrips remained unchanged. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25548.86, down by 102.98 points or 0.40% after trading in a range of 25386.48 and 25554.46. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.38%, while Small cap index declined by 0.11%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 0.79%, Realty up by 0.47%, Oil & Gas up by 0.13% and Power up by 0.07%, while Metal down by 1.11%,TECK down by 0.61%, FMCG down by 0.45%, IT down by 0.42% and Auto down by 0.42% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 0.99%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.67%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.56%, Reliance Industries up by 0.18% and Infosys up by 0.18%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 1.70%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.59%, Tata Motors down by 1.50%, Wipro down by 1.50% and Vedanta down by 1.35% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has expressed his confidence that India would sail through global turmoils without much adverse impact. Jaitley said that 'I am one of those who believe that we have learnt to live in the era of turmoils. Whether it was Greece crisis, or China devaluation or speculations about rate hike by the US Fed. Every day, something or the other impacts the market. As policy planners, we cannot really hedge our bets (on these factors)'. He added that impact on the market does create an optical impression of some kind of a turmoil,' and the policy makers should not be perturbed by such transient factors.

Jaitley in the second leg of his four-day visit to Singapore and Hong Kong, said that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and certainly it can't be amid any disappointment or disillusion. He added that the world has become an uncertain place because traditionally strong economies are facing their own challenges and everyone will have to live up to a situation where many unpredictable things can happen.

Though, he admitted that there would certainly have been an impact if the US central bank had raised the rates. He further stated that markets will keep moving up and down. Even if change had taken place in the Fed rate, the market would have been impacted for some period of time and then would have stabilised.

Talking about the government measures he said that there have been a series of reforms. The government has become far more decisive. There is a lot of economic activity that is happening and even in the midst of the global economic slowdown, our figures are much better. There is a lot of excitement that the investment people now have. The FDI inflows have significantly improved and investors are looking at different sectors in India, including infrastructure, smart cities, manufacturing sectors and services. Public investments have gone up significantly by about 39% and FDI this year has improved by 49% from the previous year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7762.75, down by 49.25 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 7723.25 and 7762.85. There were 9 stocks advancing against 41 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Cairn India up by 0.81%, BPCL up by 0.68%, NTPC up by 0.66%, Power Grid Corpn. up by 0.53% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.39%. On the flip side, Bosch down by 3.50%, HCL Tech. down by 2.34%, Asian Paints down by 2.26%, Tata Steel down by 2.20% and NMDC down by 2.20% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 636.16 points or 2.92% to 21,160.42, Nikkei 225 decreased 362.06 points or 1.96% to 18,070.21, Taiwan Weighted decreased 167.24 points or 2% to 8,198.68, Shanghai Composite decreased 68.72 points or 2.16% to 3,116.90, Jakarta Composite decreased 66.34 points or 1.53% to 4,277.70, Straits Times decreased 31.46 points or 1.1% to 2,837.01, KOSPI Index decreased 30.44 points or 1.54% to 1,951.62 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 22.77 points or 1.39% to 1,612.60.