Benchmarks continue weak trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued their weak trade in the late afternoon session on account of selling in frontline blue chip counters ahead of the Bihar elections result. The fifth and final round of voting for 57 seats across nine districts in the Bihar Assembly poll takes place today. Sentiments remained down-beat on the report that India may have to import a large quantity of 10 million tonnes of pulses if the domestic production-consumption mismatch has to be bridged, leaving the government with a daunting task. Besides, depreciation in the rupee also dampened the sentiments. The rupee fell by 19 paise to 65.67 against the dollar in early trade due to fresh demand for the American currency from importers. However, losses remained capped with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that introduction of the goods and services tax (GST), which will replace more than a dozen state levies, is only 'a question of time' as obstruction to the reform measure will not stand parliamentary vote. Besides, some support also came in from reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 33.16 crore on November 04, 2014.  On the global front, Asian stocks snapped a two-day rising streak and declined on Thursday after the US central bank hinted at a December interest rate hike, sending short-term US bond yields to 4-1/2-year highs and pushing the dollar broadly up.

Back home, Traders were seen piling position in Auto, Consumer Durables and Realty stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT and TECK sector stocks. In the scrip specific development, Shares of Yuken India have surged after the company has signed an agreement with Bangalore-based real estate developer Brigade Enterprises. On the other hand, shares of Ashok Leyland have dipped after the company reported a net profit Rs 286 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 (Q2), against street estimates of Rs 316 crore due to lower than expected revenues.

The market breadth on BSE was negative, out of 2622 stocks traded, 897 stocks advanced, while 1603 stocks declined on the BSE. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26437.69, down by 115.23 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 26373.48 and 26557.80. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.69%, while Small cap index down by 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 0.31%, Auto up by 0.11% and PSU up by 0.11%, while Realty down by 1.27%, Bankex down by 1.20%, TECK down by 0.78%, IT down by 0.60% and Oil & Gas down by 0.55% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 2.39%, NTPC up by 1.11%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.11%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.87% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.78%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 4.00%, Tata Steel down by 3.18%, Sun Pharma down by 2.52%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.23% and Axis Bank down by 1.77% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to discuss ways to arrest the plunge in the exports, A Commerce Ministry panel will hold a meeting on November 6 in Goa. The meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Commerce will be chaired by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In the meeting issues related to continuous dip in exports and ways to boost the country’s exports will be discussed. The Director General of Foreign Trade will give a presentation on the foreign trade policy to the committee, which comprises 11 Members of Lok Sabha, and seven Members of Rajya Sabha.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has said that the decline of 17.6 per cent in first six months of the fiscal will put massive pressure even in realising the export figure which India achieved aggregate $310.5 billion in 2014-15. Recently, with an aim to improve competitiveness of a large number of exporters and help them tide over the difficult global economic scenario, the government has extended incentives of Rs 3,000 crore to a large number of products, including textiles and electronics. This move would help in boosting exports, which are in negative zone since December last year.

Contracting for the tenth month in a row, India's exports plunged over 24 percent in September mainly due to global slowdown and declining commodity prices worldwide. The last time Indian exports registered a positive growth was in November 2014, when shipments had expanded at a rate of 7.27 percent.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7999.20, down by 41.00 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 7981.90 and 8031.20. There were 13 stocks advancing against 37 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 2.32%, Hindustan Unilever up by 0.99%, NTPC up by 0.96%, Asian Paints up by 0.88% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.84%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 4.00%, Tata Steel down by 3.23%, Sun Pharma down by 2.56%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 2.37% and Bharti Airtel down by 2.37% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Jakarta Composite was down by 25.03 points or 0.54% to 4,587.54, Taiwan Weighted decreased 6.84 points or 0.08% to 8,850.18, KOSPI Index declined 3.36 points or 0.16% to 2,049.41 and Hang Seng was down by 2.53 points or 0.01% to 23,051.04. On the other hand, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 3.53 points or 0.21% to 1,689.15, Shanghai Composite surged 63.18 points or 1.83% to 3,522.82 and Nikkei 225 was up by 189.5 points or 1% to 19,116.41.

The European markets were trading mostly in green; Germany’s DAX was up by 2.27 points or 0.02% to 10,847.51 and France’s CAC rose 9.9 points or 0.2% to 4,958.19. on the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 21.8 points or 0.34% to 6,391.08.