Markers trade lower in early deals; Nifty slips below 7,900 mark

After ending a choppy session on a flat note in last session, Indian equity markets have made a negative start and are trading with cut of around a quarter per cent in morning deals amid weak global cues. Weakness in Indian rupee also dampened the sentiment. The rupee depreciated by 15 paise to quote at 66.55 against the dollar at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange market in early trade on account of increased demand for the American currency from importers and banks. However, downside remained capped with Niti Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant’s statement that India needs to grow at ten percent to become ten trillion dollar economy and eliminate poverty by 2032. He also said a growth rate of ten percent would also help in creation of 175 millions jobs by 2032. Besides, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities worth Rs 805 crore on Thursday, as per provisional stock exchange data that too kept supporting the sentiment.  

In the scrip specific development, Tata Steel was trading higher on reports that Britain could take an equity stake of up to 25 per cent in the steel major's steel assets in the UK.

On the global front, US markets ended lower on Thursday after a mixed bag of quarterly earnings reports. Asian markets were trading in red following the weak lead overnight from Wall Street. Investors also resorted to profit taking in some of the markets following the recent strong gains.

Back home, trader were seen piling up position in Oil & Gas, Metal, Realty, Auto and PSU, while selling was witnessed in Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, IT, TECK and Power. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 756:779, while 69 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25832.00, down by 48.38 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 25771.88 and 25901.93. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.05%, while Small cap index was down by 0.07%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 0.53%, Metal up by 0.34%, Realty up by 0.32%, Auto up by 0.22% and PSU up by 0.09%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.02%, Capital Goods down by 0.58%, IT down by 0.45%, TECK down by 0.38% and Power down by 0.32% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 1.79%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.57%, ONGC up by 1.06%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.60% and Reliance Industries up by 0.54%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 1.78%, Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.32%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.87%, HDFC down by 0.79% and Infosys down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), justifying its decision to impose penalty on telecom companies has said to the Supreme Court that the firms were not upgrading infrastructure to ensure disruption-free calling and accused them of running a cartel with scant care for customers facing the problem of call drops.

Defending the decision to charge telcos for call drops, the telecom body alleged that a cartel of four-to-five operators are having a billion subscribers and are raking in Rs 250 crore a day but not investing in their networks to check the problem. It pointed that there was a 61-per cent increase in consumers last five years and 41 per cent increase in revenue. Appearing for Trai before a bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice R F Nariman, Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi said around 800 crore outgoing calls drop in a year, most of them because of the fault of telecom service providers which generated revenue of about 1.4 lakh crore in 2014-15. He further said that consumers must get decent service.

Various technologies are evolving. If you are ready to invest, the problems can be solved. Like in the western world, there are no towers. For an orderly world, you must invest.AG further defended the penalty imposed by the regulator on telecom firms saying it will be around Rs 280 crore and not thousands of crore as was being claimed by the service providers. He also said that the companies force consumers to sign on documents at the time of getting connection, which say that the operator would not be responsible for call drops, how would a poor consumer know what is there in the documents.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7890.95, down by 21.10 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 7873.35 and 7899.15. There were 20 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 1.85%, Indusind Bank up by 1.43%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.36%, ONGC up by 1.01% and Tech Mahindra up by 0.88%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cement down by 1.85%, BHEL down by 1.71%, Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.42%, Ultratech Cement down by 1.06% and Bank Of Baroda down by 1.05% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red, Hang Seng decreased 205.81 points or 0.95% to 21,416.44, Taiwan Weighted decreased 45.42 points or 0.53% to 8,523.23, Nikkei 225 decreased 39.67 points or 0.23% to 17,323.95, Shanghai Composite decreased 17.54 points or 0.59% to 2,935.35, KOSPI Index decreased 9.67 points or 0.48% to 2,012.43, Jakarta Composite decreased 4.78 points or 0.1% to 4,898.31 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 4.54 points or 0.26% to 1,716.93.