Markets continue to trade lower in early noon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade lower in the early noon session weighed by selling witnessed in Metal, Consumer Durabales and FMCG stocks. The BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty were down by nearly one percent. Weakness in the other Asian markets too weighed down the sentiment. Further, sentiment remained under pressure after the US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen in a testimony to Congress stated that global economic turmoil and massive sell-off in global equity markets could spook the US economy, rekindling hopes of a delay in interest rate hike. Furthermore, depreciating rupee against the dollar also negatively impacted the sentiment.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red as investors digested remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and oil remained volatile. Back home, in scrip specific development, shares of NIIT Technologies were trading higher after the company launched intelligent automation to drive greater business benefits for its clients globally. It has partnered with UiPath, a software company specialized in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions, for this initiative. On the flip side, Alstom T&D India was trading down after the company reported standalone net loss of Rs 18.21 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015.

The market breadth on BSE was negative, out of 2405 stocks traded, 424 stocks advanced, while 1875 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 23523.83, down by 235.07 points or 0.99% after trading in a range of 23505.65 and 23758.46. There were 4 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 1.17%, while Small cap index down by 1.66%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 1.70%, Consumer Durables down by 1.62%, FMCG down by 1.53%, Power down by 1.46% and Oil & Gas down by 1.40%, while they were no gainers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.49%, Tata Motors up by 1.42%, SBI up by 1.23% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.09%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 3.60%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.59%, BHEL down by 2.42%, Coal India down by 2.05% and Asian Paints down by 2.01% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that investors from the UAE could participate in India's maiden sovereign wealth fund National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), which has been set up to fund infrastructure projects, during his meeting with visiting UAE Minister of Economy Sultan Al Mansoori.

The Rs 40,000-crore NIIF will have government holding of 49 per cent and the rest will be of private investors. UAE Minister Mansoori notified that the various institutions from Gulf have already invested in sectors, like infrastructure. He reiterated that the different agencies of UAE will continue their efforts to widen their relationship with India.

Further, both the countries stressed on need for increasing cooperation in the fields of innovation and small and medium enterprises (SME) and agreed to deepen their engagement in the area of innovation so as to harness respective capabilities in a mutually beneficial manner. In this regard UAE Minister said that a strategy has been developed by them and they have also set up an Innovation Council to spearhead the activities.

While highlighting SMEs sector as critical for the growth of the economy and employment, it was also decided that the respective institutions and industry associations engaged with SMEs would cooperate to harness the growth of SME sector in both the countries.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7141.65, down by 74.05 points or 1.03% after trading in a range of 7133.85 and 7208.65. There were 7 stocks advancing against 43 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 1.88%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.56%, Tata Motors up by 1.54%, Idea Cellular up by 1.30% and SBI up by 1.26%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 3.51%, Indusind Bank down by 3.30%, Vedanta down by 3.05%, Zee Entertainment down by 2.74% and BHEL down by 2.62% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Jakarta Composite increased 39.83 points or 0.84% to 4,772.31, while Hang Seng decreased 774.21 points or 4.01% to 18,513.96, KOSPI Index decreased 56.89 points or 2.97% to 1,860.90 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 2.63 points or 0.16% to 1,641.78.