Markets continue to trade weak in; Nifty below 7950

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade weak in the early noon session, tracking muted trend seen in Asian markets, as investors awaited European Central Bank's monetary policy review on Thursday and OPEC meet this week. Sentiment remained down beat, though traders were seen piling some position in Metal and Oil & Gas stocks, while selling was witnessed in Bankex, IT, TECK, Capital Goods and PSU sector stocks.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting and a monthly U.S. job report later in the week that could cement a Fed interest rate hike this month. Back home, the broader markets were underperforming the larger peers with BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices trading down by 0.19% and 0.23%, respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative, out of 2406 stocks traded, 1090 stocks advanced, while 1226 stocks declined on the BSE.

In scrip specific development, share of TAKE Solutions was trading higher after the company launched PVIndia, a unique pharmacovigilance peer network, organized and managed by one of TAKE’s Life Sciences division, Navitas. At the time when the pharma industry is facing business challenges and the government of India citing delayed regulatory approvals as a primary concern, it is imperative for Pharma companies to arrive at solutions to tackle these problems. On the flip side, TVS Motor Company was trading down by 4.00% after the company reported a single digit 2.43% year on year increase in total sales at 225,401 units in November 2015. The Chennai-based company had sold 220,046 units in the same month last year.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26057.92, down by 111.49 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 26041.68 and 26256.42. There were 12 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining, while one stock remained unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.28%, while Small cap index lost 0.31%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 0.59% and Oil & Gas up by 0.10%, while Bankex down by 1.03%, IT down by 0.85%, TECK down by 0.75%, Capital Goods down by 0.74% and PSU down by 0.65% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 2.06%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.33%, Hindalco up by 1.19%, Cipla up by 0.93% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.71%. On the flip side, SBI down by 1.64%, ICICI Bank down by 1.43%, Infosys down by 1.30%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.26% and BHEL down by 1.20% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, showing a positive sign, India’ s fiscal deficit for the first seven months of the current financial year narrowed compared to the same period a year ago, on account of higher tax revenue collections and despite high capital spend by the government to push economic growth. According to the data released by the Controller General of Accounts, India’ s fiscal deficit for April- October 2015-16 stood at Rs 4.11 lakh crore  or 74 percent of the budget estimate for the whole year. The fiscal situation showed some improvements over the year ago  period as the deficit the end of October last year stood at 89.6 per cent of the budget estimate, forcing the government to resort to cuts to stay within the budget target.

As per the data released, the total expenditure touched Rs 10.21 lakh crore or 57.5 per cent at the end of October as compared with 53.6 per cent a year ago of budget estimate for the current fiscal at Rs 17.77 lakh crore. Plan expenditure during the period was Rs 2.70 lakh core, 58.2 per cent of the full-year Budget Estimates (BE), up from 46.4 per cent a year ago. Road transport and shipping ministries led the spending drive, along with ministries of rural development, health, food processing, drinking water and sanitation, and civil aviation. Meanwhile, non-Plan expenditure during April-October of 2015-16 was Rs 7.50 lakh crore, or 57.2 per cent, of the whole-year estimate.

The data further highlighted that the tax revenue collection also showed improvement during April- October period over last year with the government managing to collect Rs 4.28 lakh crore, or 46.6 per cent, of the full year BE of Rs 9,19,842 crore as compared to 37.7 per cent in the same period last fiscal. Total receipts from revenue and non-debt capital of the government during the first seven months stood at Rs 6.10 lakh crore representing an achievement of 50 percent. The government estimates Rs 12.21 lakh crore receipts at end-March 2016.

The revenue collections were up 25 per cent in October from last year gaining substantially from healthy growth in indirect tax collections due to additional revenue measures. The Centre's indirect tax mop-up rose 35.9 per cent in the first seven months of 2015-16 on account of excise increases on diesel and petrol, withdrawal of exemptions for motor vehicles, capital goods and consumer durables and the increase in service tax rate from 12.36 per cent to 14 per cent. Besides, the government introduced the Swachh Bharat cess of 0.5 per cent with effect from November 15, whose impact will be visible from next month.

The revenue deficit during the first seven months period stood at Rs.2.87 lakh crore, or 72.9%, of BE for 2015-16. The fiscal deficit – gap between government’s expenditure and revenue for 2015-16 has been pegged at Rs 5.55 lakh crore or 3.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7923.50, down by 31.40 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 7910.80 and 7979.30. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 2.10%, Asian Paints up by 1.62%, Hindalco up by 1.57%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.47% and Cipla up by 1.02%. On the flip side, PNB down by 2.57%, SBI down by 2.00%, HCL Tech. down by 1.98%, Bank Of Baroda down by 1.55% and ICICI Bank down by 1.52% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 40.15 points or 0.2% to 19,972.25, KOSPI Index decreased 12.43 points or 0.61% to 2,011.50, Taiwan Weighted decreased 5.9 points or 0.07% to 8,457.40, Jakarta Composite decreased 5.3 points or 0.12% to 4,552.37 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 1.08 points or 0.06% to 1,681.29, while Shanghai Composite increased 15.61 points or 0.45% to 3,471.92 and Hang Seng increased 78.38 points or 0.35% to 22,459.73.