Benchmarks add losses; Sensex slips below 25250 mark

After getting a sluggish start, Indian benchmarks extended their losses in late morning trade as investor turned cautious and started selling frontline blue chip stocks on fading hopes of passing GST Bill in this Winter session after opposition raised their decibel protesting against Delhi High Court summons to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case which led to Parliament getting adjourned yet again. Besides, continued selling by Foreign Investors along with weakness in global markets also weighed on sentiment. Meanwhile, The foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 518.46 crore yesterday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. However, losses remained capped with the government stating that the fall in foreign portfolio investments may not have any major macroeconomic impact as long as capital flows are adequate to finance current account deficit.

On the global front, Asian markets trading mostly in red on Wednesday, as crumbling oil prices took a toll on energy and resource shares, with cooling demand from China putting more pressure on resources-reliant economies. Furthermore, US stock-markets ended lower for a second-straight day on Tuesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted back-to-back declines of at least 100 points. Back home, selling pressure was seen across the board as all the BSE sectoral indices trading on the negative side with Metal index taking the big hit. In scrip specific development, shares of IIFL Holdings surged after the company received its board’s approval for the acquisition of 3.25 lakh equity shares of India Infoline Insurance Brokers (IIIBL), constituting 65 per cent of its equity share capital.

The market breadth on BSE was negative, out of 2433 stocks traded, 465 stocks advanced, while 1831 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25210.42, down by 99.91 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 25165.16 and 25316.95. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 1.05%, while Small cap index down by 1.68%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 1.41%, Realty down by 1.24%, Capital Goods down by 0.90%, Auto down by 0.89% and Power down by 0.64%, while there were no gainers on BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 1.97%, TCS up by 0.90%, ITC up by 0.78%, Hindustan Unilever up by 0.55% and HDFC Bank up by 0.41%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 2.58%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.31%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 2.18%, Tata Steel down by 1.92% and Hindalco down by 1.65% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Government for the second half of financial year 2015-16 has cut market borrowing target by Rs 15,000 crore. This amount will be raised through the Sovereign Gold Bond and Gold Monetisation Scheme, with no any impact on the overall borrowing, as this is merely substitution of one borrowing with another.

As per the RBI statement, the Government will raise Rs 2.49 lakh crore through market borrowings in the second half of the current fiscal. Out of which Rs 2.34 lakh crore will be raised through issue of Treasury Bills while Rs 15,000 crore would be raised through sovereign gold bonds. The government plans to borrow a total of Rs 6.01 lakh crore from the market this fiscal. For the first half of the financial year, it has borrowed about Rs 3.5 lakh crore, which is over 50 per cent of the annual target.

The government has budgeted gross and net market borrowing for FY16 at Rs 6 lakh crore and Rs 4.56 lakh crore, respectively. The second half borrowing programme was decided at a meeting chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das. The government borrows money from the market through T-bills and other instruments to fund its fiscal deficit.

According to the government’s public debt management report released for the second quarter, the total public debt (excluding liabilities under the 'Public Account') of the Government increased to Rs 5,412,171 crore at end-September 2015 from Rs 5,301,394 crore at end-June 2015, increase of 2.1 per cent compared with an increase of 3.2 per cent in the previous quarter. Internal debt constituted 92.1 per cent of public debt, as compared with 92.3 per cent in the previous quarter.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7668.35, down by 33.35 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 7653.20 and 7702.85. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BHEL up by 1.88%, ITC up by 0.94%, TCS up by 0.91%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.84% and Tech Mahindra up by 0.81%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 2.81%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.39%, Tata Steel down by 1.98% and Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.91% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 was down by 0.94%, Taiwan Weighted down by 0.98%, Jakarta Composite down by 1.27%, Hang Seng down by 0.34%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI down by 0.24%. On the flip side, KOSPI Index was up by 0.2% and Shanghai Composite was up by 0.42%.