Benchmarks off day’s lows in noon deals

Paring most of their losses, Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in red in afternoon deals, with frontline gauges trading tad below their crucial 26,900 (Sensex) and 8,150 (Nifty) levels. Investors remained on sidelines ahead of the September quarter results of IT-major TCS, which is set to announce later today. Sentiments remained down beat after India's retail inflation based on the consumer price index (CPI) for September increased to 4.41%, from 3.74% recorded for the previous month, on the back of higher food prices. However, some support came in with report that Industrial Production grew by 6.4% for the month of August, an improvement over the 4.2% growth registered in the previous month of June.

On the global front, European counters have made a choppy start, CAC, DAX and FTSE are trading with a cut of around half a percent in early deals. Asian markets, retreating from the seven-week highs, are trading mostly in red at this point of time, after China’s imports fell by more than estimated. Back home, on the sectoral front, realty, power and FMCG witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while software, technology and metal 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 1,403 shares on the gaining side against 1,072 shares on the losing side while 99 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26888.85, down by 15.26 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 26783.74 and 26918.52. 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 0.09%, while Small cap index up by 0.43%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.22%, Power up by 0.42%, FMCG up by 0.42%, Auto up by 0.25%, Capital Goods up by 0.19% while, IT down by 1.26%, TECK down by 1.21%, Metal down by 0.40%, Oil & Gas down by 0.33%, PSU down by 0.03% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto up by 1.43%, Coal India up by 1.38%, ITC up by 1.26%, BHEL up by 1.02% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.94%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 4.40%, Vedanta down by 3.34%, ONGC down by 3.21%, Infosys down by 2.38% and Tata Steel down by 2.15% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman UK Sinha has asserted that curbing black money or collecting revenue is not the primary responsibility of SEBI, there are agencies in the country who are being paid for this job. SEBI’s job is to protect the interest of investors and curb manipulation in the market. It has from time-to-time passed on information to the concerned authorities to clamp down on such illegal activities.

Sinha further said that there have been rising concerns over illegal fund flows in the system and there have been instances that came to the notice of SEBI where stock market was used to carry out illicit money transactions. He highlighted that SEBI started surveillance system on its own, pointing out an instance in the past there where change in the unique plan code was being used to manipulate and evade tax and said that the SEBI took action on frequent changes in the unique plan code and also passed on the information to tax authorities.

Talking about Participatory Notes (PNs) which are being misused, Sinha said the regulator has all the data about entities who are using PNs, who can issue it, who can subscribe to it, all that is very well documented. Furthermore, he noted that people are perhaps missing out that there is a huge difference in participatory notes system today from that of 3-4 years back.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8140.60, down by 3.00 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 8109.55 and 8150.25. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 2.10%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.88%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.62%, Coal India up by 1.41% and ITC up by 1.36%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 4.23%, Vedanta down by 3.38%, ONGC down by 3.25%, HCL Tech down by 2.81% and Idea Cellular down by 2.50% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 203.93 points or 1.11% to 18,234.74, Jakarta Composite declined 134.9 points or 2.91% to 4,495.81, Hang Seng shed 101.11 points or 0.44% to 22,629.82, Taiwan Weighted slipped 5.8 points or 0.07% to 8,567.92 and KOSPI Index was down by 2.58 points or 0.13% to 2,019.05. On the flip side FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 0.01 points or 0% to 1,709.87 and Shanghai Composite was up by 4.63 points or 0.14% to 3,292.29.

European markets were trading mostly in red; France’s CAC declined 0.71%, UK’s FTSE shed 0.22% and Germany’s DAX was down by 0.17%.