Markets continue to trade weak; Nifty below 7800

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade in red in early noon session, with sensex and Nifty trading below their crucial 25,700 and 7,800 levels, respectively, on account of selling in front line blue chip counters. Apart from profit-booking in recent gainers, weak trend at other Asian bourses, tracking overnight losses in the US markets, too dampened the sentiment. However, losses remained capped with the Finance Ministry’s statement that India is well prepared to deal with the impact of the US Federal Reserve interest rate hike and the end of uncertainties will actually help policy makers in emerging economies. Traders were seen piling up position in Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Realty, Power and FMCG stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT, TECK, Auto, Metal, Bankex and Oil & Gas stocks.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, after wavering between positive and negative territory, as investors focused on economic data, central bank decisions and commodity prices. Back home, in scrip specific development, share of Jyoti was trading higher over 13% after the company won the prestigious order worth Rs 139 crore from DRN Infrastructure. On the flip side, HDFC was trading down after the mortgage lender said it plans to sell its 22.90% stake in its subsidiary HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company to its joint-venture partner ERGO International AG, Dusseldorf. 

The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2461 stocks traded, 1197 stocks advanced, while 1074 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25667.66, down by 136.12 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 25637.75 and 25789.51. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.49%, while Small cap index was up by 0.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 0.98%, Capital Goods up by 0.53%, Realty up by 0.43%, Power up by 0.37% and FMCG up by 0.22%, while IT down by 0.87%, TECK down by 0.67%, Metal down by 0.65%, Bankex down by 0.46% and Oil & Gas down by 0.21% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.33%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.13%, Larsen & Toubro up by 0.80%, Cipla up by 0.30% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.09%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 1.95%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.35%, Infosys down by 1.31%, HDFC down by 1.04% and TCS down by 1.02% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das has cleared 3 Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) proposals amounting Rs 160 crore which includes ScaleneWorks People Solutions LLP, GVK Biosciences and Singapore based GMS Pharma. Of the 24 proposals which were on the agenda of the FIPB, 11 worth Rs 300 crore fell under the automatic route due to the new policy announced earlier this month. So, in effect, the FIPB discussed the remaining and cleared three.
 
Approval has been sought by GVK Biosciences for transfer of its 9.091% shares currently held by Sequoia Capital to Destiny Investments for an aggregate consideration of 145.4 crores. Besides, approval has been sought by GMS Pharma (Singapore) for the proposed acquisition of 25.1% of the share capital of Stelis Biopharma either by itself or through its affiliates and or group companies, in one or more tranches which is currently held by Strides Arcolab.

However, 9 FDI proposals including  HDFC Standard Life insurance Company, Tata Sikorsky Aerospace, Jupiter Satellite lndia, Financial Times (lndia), Volvo Asset Finance lndia, Aviva Life lnsurance Co lndia, lndus Way Emerging Market Fund Series ll, Ivy Cap Ventures Trust Fund ll and Firefly Networks were deferred. Meanwhile, FIPB rejected ACN Cable proposal which has been sought for increasing the equity stake from 47.56%  to 73.16% by way of downstream investment by Atria Convergence Technologies (foreign owned) in ACN Cable, an MSO. Besides, 8 FDI proposals did not lie before FIPB and three proposals were withdrawn by the applicants.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7798.90, down by 45.45 points or 0.58% after trading in a range of 7794.35 and 7836.15. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were NTPC up by 1.48%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.23%, Adani Ports &Special up by 0.88%, Tata Power up by 0.85% and BPCL up by 0.78%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 2.24%, Vedanta down by 2.07%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.76%, ONGC down by 1.31% and Infosys down by 1.28% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 253.53 points or 1.31% to 19,100.03, Jakarta Composite decreased 69.19 points or 1.52% to 4,486.78, Taiwan Weighted decreased 62.35 points or 0.75% to 8,257.32, Hang Seng decreased 19.88 points or 0.09% to 21,852.18 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 8.32 points or 0.5% to 1,648.20, while KOSPI Index increased 0.78 points or 0.04% to 1,978.74 and Shanghai Composite increased 1.49 points or 0.04% to 3,581.49.