Post Session: Quick Review

Indian markets extended their consolidation mood on Wednesday, and though the start was good benchmarks lost their momentum in the very first hour and struggled till last to enter the green territory amid selling pressure in IT and banking stocks. After a heavy economic data day, markets lacked any action as there wasn’t any release today. On the same time, the rupee depreciated against the US dollar, in contrast with other Asian currencies due to persistent selling of dollar by banks and exporters after RBI kept its key policy rates unchanged, that too weighed on the sentiments. Traders also remained concerned with an RBI-sponsored survey of professional forecasters pointing that the retail inflation is likely to rise to 5.5 per cent in the last quarter of this fiscal and thereafter may moderate to 5.2 per cent by September 2016. Though, the forecasters expect real Gross Value Added at basic price (GVA) to increase by 7.4 per cent in 2015-16. Though, any sharp downtick in the market was restricted on report that foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country grew by 13 percent to $16.63 billion during the April-September period of the current fiscal.

On the global front, despite the rally in US markets overnight, the Asian stocks fluctuated after some commodities gained and the oil dropped ahead of OPEC’s policy meeting at which the group is forecast to refrain from cutting output. Most of the indices in the region ended in red, while the Chinese markets witnessed good gains, recovering from the day’s low and the Shanghai Composite posted its biggest one-day gain in a month. The European markets after a cautious start have turned higher amid expectations the European Central Bank will expand stimulus at a review on Thursday and a pickup in euro-area inflation in November may prove too tame to stop Mario Draghi in his tracks.

Back home, the major indices remained in a narrow range after dipping into red, lacking any supportive trigger, but in the final hours there were attempts to claw back in green, however profit taking once again dragged the major indices down. Though, gains in select metal, oil & gas, and healthcare stocks helped cap the losses. Steel stocks witnessed some buying, after Steel Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that the government is looking to extend safeguard duty to more steel products in addition to hot rolled coil (HRC) steel. The government had recently imposed a 20 percent safeguard duty on HRC for 200 days. In addition, the steel ministry is talking with the commerce ministry and finance ministry for co-ordinated efforts to reduce the stress in the steel sector. JSW Steel was up by around 4%, Tata Steel and SAIL gained over 2% and Bhusan Steel was up by around half a percent. On the other hand, banking stocks remained under pressure, mainly the PSU banks, as the Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that he expects bad debt-burdened banks to clean up their balance sheets by March 2017, warning the central bank would monitor whether concessions made to lenders were being misused. SBI was down by 2%, PNB lost over 3%, BoB, Canara Bank and Bank of India were down by over 2%,

The BSE Sensex ended at 26089.56, down by 79.85 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 26041.68 and 26256.42. There were 16 stocks in green against 14 stocks in red on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices though managed a positive close; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.19%, while Small cap index was tad higher by 0.02%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 0.62%, Metal up by 0.31%, Oil & Gas up by 0.13%, Realty up by 0.04%, while Bankex down by 1.16%, IT down by 0.92%, Capital Goods down by 0.76%, TECK down by 0.67%, PSU down by 0.66% were the losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Lupin up by 3.42%, Tata Steel up by 2.19%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.47%, Cipla up by 1.34% and Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.25%. On the flip side, SBI down by 1.85%, Infosys down by 1.62%, Tata Motors down by 1.51%, BHEL down by 1.51% and ICICI Bank down by 1.33% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India while maintaining status quo in its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review, has said that despite constant weakness in global trade, the early signs of recovery are visible in some export sectors such as readymade garments, pharmaceuticals and electronics, in the current fiscal. These sectors together contribute about 14-15 per cent in the country's total exports.

However, RBI has excluded petroleum products stating that with global commodity prices, especially those of crude, softening further, both petroleum products and non-petroleum products exports continued to contract. Further it said that the global trade has been sluggish with declining demand and oversupply in several primary commodities and industrial materials.

Meanwhile, highlighting the trade condition said that the decline in bullion imports despite the festival season helped narrow the trade deficit in October as well as over the financial year so far, moderating the current account deficit further. Net foreign direct investment (FDI), external commercial borrowings and accretions to non-resident deposits have risen in relation to last year. It also said that underlying liquidity conditions tightened in October-November with the festival season draining currency from the system and some slowdown in government expenditure.

Indian merchandise exports contracting for the eleventh straight month plunged by 17.33 percent in the month of October to $21.35 billion. The significant fall in exports is attributed to weak global demand, amid a tepid global economic recovery.

The CNX Nifty ended at 7926.55, down by 28.35 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 7910.80 and 7979.30. There were 20 stocks on gainers side against 30 stocks on losers’ side on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 3.49%, Tata Steel up by 2.38%, Cipla up by 1.45%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.36% and Reliance Industries up by 1.31%. On the flip side, PNB down by 2.99%, SBI down by 2.24%, Bank Of Baroda down by 2.20%, HCL Tech. down by 2.07% and Infosys down by 1.67% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European markets were trading marginally in green, France’s CAC was up by 2.24 points or 0.05% to 4,916.77, Germany’s DAX gained 3.2 points or 0.03% to 11,264.44 and UK’s FTSE 100 was higher by 24.9 points or 0.39% to 6,420.55. (Provisional)

The Asian markets closed mostly lower on Wednesday after US reported weak manufacturing data which raised questions about the US economy and the pace of expected interest rate rises by the Federal Reserve. Though the markets got a strong lead from Wall Street, Japanese shares were down in thin trade as investors avoided investing in cyclical shares before big market events this week such as the European Central Bank's policy meeting and the release of US jobs data. Hong Kong stocks rose, bolstered by financial and property shares as well as a sharp rebound in blue-chips in mainland China. China stocks posted their biggest one-day percentage rise in a month as investors rotated out of small caps into blue chips, with property shares surging for the second day on speculation that Beijing was about to announce a new incentive to boost the country's sagging property market.