Choppiness continues on Dalal Street in noon deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade choppy in afternoon session, as sentiment remained weak in the absence of any positive trigger. Traders also opted to book profit at higher levels after four days of rally. Market participants also remained cautious with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the global economic situation is grim and worrisome and that has prompted the nations to put up firewalls around their own systems to save themselves from the slowdown and grow within the limitations. Weakness in Asian markets too dampened sentiments. All the other Asian counters were trading in red at this point of time after oil prices took a fresh spill on news Kuwaiti oil workers ended a three-day strike.

Back home, losses remained capped as some support came in with appreciation in Indian rupee. The rupee strengthened by 32 paise to 66.22 against the US dollar in noon deals at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange on increased selling of American currency by exporters. Buying in power space too aided sentiments as a high-level panel has suggested for real-time trading of power and making energy exchanges more flexible to facilitate integration of renewable energy with the electricity grid. The broader indices were trading mixed, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,206 shares on the gaining side against 1,120 shares on the losing side while 137 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25800.76, down by 15.60 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 25724.49 and 25956.34. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.03%, while Small cap index up by 0.36%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 3.10%, Consumer Durables up by 1.82%, Basic Materials up by 1.14%, Utilities up by 0.97% and Power up by 0.90%, while Energy down by 1.05%, Oil & Gas down by 0.71%, Realty down by 0.69%, Telecom down by 0.61% and TECK down by 0.54% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 4.82%, Axis Bank up by 2.53%, GAIL India up by 1.70%, Coal India up by 1.18% and ONGC up by 1.11%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.21%, TCS down by 1.91%, Reliance Industries down by 1.87%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.41% and Sun Pharma down by 0.70% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing hope that the country will be able to improve its growth this year from the 7.6 percent achieved last fiscal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that India has its 'hands full' in bringing about structural changes and implementing key reforms to boost economic growth.

The minister said that the country still requires a lot of structural changes and the government has taken steps to ease processes, make the business environment easier and bring in greater transparency into the system. Highlighting various initiatives, Jaitley said that the government has also changed arbitration laws, amended some of the 'onerous provisions' of the Companies Act and will bring down corporate tax to 25 percent over the next couple of years. He further expressed hope that the bankruptcy law would be approved over the next few weeks and that the government 'is in the final stages' of passing a law that deals with commercial indebtedness.

In addition to this, he said that the two significant directions which he has followed are increased expenditure in infrastructure and in rural India. These are the two areas which were lacking and these appear to be the focus area and will probably be the direction of the economy in the next few years. On indirect taxes, he said India is in the 'last stages' before the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is approved.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7900.35, down by 14.35 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 7878.85 and 7950.40. There were 25 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 4.84%, Hindalco up by 3.86%, Axis Bank up by 2.28%, GAIL India up by 1.96% and Tech Mahindra up by 1.94%. On the flip side, Idea Cellular down by 2.69%, Reliance Industries down by 2.19%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.17%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.90% and TCS down by 1.80% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 251.04 points or 1.17% to 21,185.17, Taiwan Weighted declined 119.24 points or 1.38% to 8,514.48, Shanghai Composite tumbled 89.4 points or 2.94% to 2,953.42, Jakarta Composite slipped 6.86 points or 0.14% to 4,875.07, KOSPI Index shed 5.53 points or 0.27% to 2,005.83 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 5.26 points or 0.31% to 1,705.89. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 32.1 points or 0.19% to 16,906.54.