Choppiness continues on Dalal Street in noon deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade choppy in afternoon session, as market participants opted to remained sidelines as its being the expiry session of the January F&O series. Sentiment remained weak in the absence of any positive trigger amid sustained capital outflows by foreign funds. Domestic sentiment was also hit as the rupee hit a fresh 29-month low of 68.13 in noon deals. Meanwhile, telecom stocks remained under pressure after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has proposed auction of 700 MHz spectrum at a reserve price of Rs 11,485 crore per MHz. This is the highest reserve price fixed for a band ever since the process for spectrum auction started nearly five years ago. However, select infra stocks remained on buyers’ radar as the government has approved the hybrid annuity model for building national highways, paving the way for construction of 28 projects worth Rs 36,000 crore this fiscal year. Also, the names of first 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities will be announced by the government today. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed at this point of time, after the US Federal Reserve kept the monetary policy unchanged citing weak economic growth. Closer home, the broader indices too were trading with marginal cut, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 1,057 shares on the gaining side against 1,204 shares on the losing side while 162 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 24455.63, down by 36.76 points or 0.15% after trading in a range of 24400.52 and 24529.64. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.39%, while Small cap index down by 0.09%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.02%, Healthcare up by 0.34%, Power up by 0.32%, Energy up by 0.30% and Utilities up by 0.29%, while Telecom down by 1.79%, Realty down by 1.10%, Capital Goods down by 1.05%, Materials down by 0.43% and Bankex down by 0.40% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.99%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.86%, ITC up by 1.41%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.33% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.01%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 2.08%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.64%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.64%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.58% and Adani Ports &Special down by 1.58% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India has been placed at 76th position in public sector corruption out of 168 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, improving its slot from 85 in 2014 and 94 in 2013. Despite an improvement in the overall ranking, India’s corruption perception score remained same at 38 out of a 100 as it had in 2014, which is seen as insufficient improvement. It stood at the same position as Brazil, but seven places above China, and well above Russia, which came in at 119th.

India though does not have much to cheer about as neighboring Bhutan has achieved a much better ranking of 27. Countries facing strife and conflicts were found at the bottom of the index. For a third year running, Denmark was perceived as the cleanest country with a score of 91 and topped the list. North Korea and Somalia were the worst performers, scoring just eight points each ranked last. The US rose one spot this year to 16th place with a score of 76, tying with Austria. The UK rose three spots to place 10th, with a score of 81 that tied it with Germany and Luxembourg. The other top spots, from second to ninth, were occupied by Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore and Canada.

Transparency International in its report noted that a majority of countries on the list had seen their score improve, as citizen-led protest movements against corruption piled pressure on governments. The report further said that this year’s poor results demand that leaders revisit the genuineness of their efforts. They must fulfill promises and ensure efforts aren’t undermined in practice.

Among the characteristics shared by the top performers list were high levels of press freedom, transparency about budgets, high levels of public sector integrity and fair and independent judiciaries. Transparency International, however, cautioned that a clean public sector record at home didn’t necessarily translate into a good performance abroad.  The Transparency International uses data from institutions including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and business school IMD to compile the perceptions of the scale of public sector corruption. The index grades a country on a scale of zero to 100, the latter being the least corrupt.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7425.45, down by 12.30 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 7409.60 and 7447.35. There were 22 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Cairn India up by 2.99%, Power Grid up by 2.71%, Zee Entertainment up by 2.21%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.02% and Hindustan Unilever up by 1.99%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 2.09%, PNB down by 1.97%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.97%, HDFC down by 1.69% and Adani Ports &Special down by 1.69% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite rose 3.55 points or 0.08% to 4,587.18, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 3.88 points or 0.24% to 1,635.42, KOSPI Index increased 9.07 points or 0.48% to 1,906.94 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 55.27 points or 0.7% to 7,905.10. However, Nikkei 225 decreased 122.47 points or 0.71% to 17,041.45, Shanghai Composite dropped 38.94 points or 1.42% to 2,696.62 and Hang Seng was down by 14.23 points or 0.07% to 19,038.22.