Weakness persists on street; Realty, IT drag

Local equity markets were trading lackluster in the late afternoon session as selling has intensified across the board. The sentiments were on pessimistic note from early trade after India and Mauritius agreed to amend a three-decade old treaty thereby imposing capital gains tax on investments routed through Mauritius from next fiscal onwards. Traders were seen piling position in Capital Goods and Metal stocks while selling was witnessed in Realty, IT and PSU sector stocks. Hectic buying activity was witnessed in telecom stocks which recovered from their intraday lows after Supreme Court strikes down call drop levies. In scrip specific development, Zee Entertainment Enterprises was trading firm on back of robust fourth quarter numbers. The company has posted a net profit of Rs 260.6 crore in January-March quarter up 12.9 percent from Rs 230.8 crore in corresponding quarter last fiscal. During the quarter, its total income rose 13 percent at Rs 1531.6 crore against Rs 1347.1 crore on annual basis. SRF was trading in green after the company yesterday reported 82 percent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 108.79 crore for the quarter ended March 31, on account of lower expenses and rise in income. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 60 crore in the same quarter of the 2014-15 fiscal.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green while the European markets traded on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below the psychological 7,850 and 25,650 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 930:1496 while 144 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25600.75, down by 171.78 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 25409.24 and 25762.49. There were 6 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green and red; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.14%, while Small cap index down by 0.15%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 0.13%, Metal up by 0.03% while, Realty down by 1.09%, IT down by 0.93%, PSU down by 0.73%, TECK down by 0.68%, Auto down by 0.59% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 1.51%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.76%, Asian Paints up by 0.65%, Larsen & Toubro up by 0.64% and NTPC up by 0.53%.

On the flip side, SBI down by 1.88%, BHEL down by 1.71%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 1.62%, ITC down by 1.56% and Infosys down by 1.39% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, amid lower global commodity prices and sluggish demand abroad, India’s agricultural and processed food exports fell by close to 20 percent in the fiscal year 2015-16, on the back of decline in shipments of major exportable items such as rice, buffalo meat and guargum in the year. The value of agri-product exports fell to Rs 1.05 lakh crore in FY16 against Rs 1.31 lakh crore reported in FY15, as per the data of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products and Export Development Authority (Apeda),.

The data further highlighted that the exports of buffalo meat, while declining 8 percent in value terms to Rs 26,682 crore in the last fiscal, still remained the largest item in the Apeda export basket. Buffalo meat exports surpassed the value of Basmati rice exports for the first time in financial year 2014-15. In the case of exports of non-Basmati rice, the decline was a steep 26 percent in terms of value. Further, the shipments of the aromatic grain fell 17 percent by value to Rs 22,714 crore in fiscal year 2015-16 mainly because of lower exports to Iran and a fall in prices. However, shipments of fresh fruit and vegetables saw a 10 percent rise in financial year 2015-16 to Rs 8,681 crore. Exports of guargum, mostly used by US-based oil exploration company, declined by more than 61 percent to Rs 3,613 crore in 2015-16 compared with Rs 9,478 crore in the previous year.

Apeda has identified 20-odd clusters located for sustaining growth in the country’s food products’ exports. These clusters include Basmati rice (Haryana and Punjab), buffalo meat (western Uttar Pradesh), grape and wine (Nashik region, Maharashtra), pomegranate (Satara and Pune regions of Maharashtra), dehydrated onions and garlic (Gujarat), poultry or egg (Namakkal) and mango pulp (Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7849.15, down by 38.65 points or 0.49% after trading in a range of 7780.90 and 7893.10. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Zee Entertainment up by 7.14%, Hindalco up by 2.56%, Axis Bank up by 1.46%, Grasim Industries up by 1.29% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.27%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors - DVR down by 2.47%, SBI down by 1.93%, BHEL down by 1.75%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.72% and ITC down by 1.64% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Shanghai Composite increased 4.45 points or 0.16% to 2,837.04, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 10.39 points or 0.64% to 1,646.23, Nikkei 225 increased 13.82 points or 0.08% to 16,579.01 and Jakarta Composite increased 35.77 points or 0.75% to 4,798.89.

On the other hand, Hang Seng decreased 187.39 points or 0.93% to 20,055.29, Taiwan Weighted decreased 20.73 points or 0.25% to 8,135.56 and KOSPI Index decreased 2.4 points or 0.12% to 1,980.10.

The European markets were trading in red; UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 21.84 points or 0.35% to 6,134.81, Germany’s DAX decreased 61.59 points or 0.61% to 9,983.85 and France’s CAC decreased 46 points or 1.06% to 4,292.21.