Benchmarks erase early gains; starts trading in red

Indian equity markets erased the initial gains and were trading in red in the early noon session on profit-booking in IT, bank, capital goods, metal and tech sectors amid mixed Asian cues. However, market participants were getting some comfort with the private report indicating Inflation in India to fall to 4.5 per cent by next March, giving the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) space to cut key policy rates by 50 basis points in the current fiscal. The sentiment also got some support with a good monsoon season so far, raising hopes of a revival in farm output as well as income and on optimism over the GST bill’s passage. In scrip specific development, Hindustan Petroleum Corp was surging after the company said it approved two bonus shares for each share held by its shareholders.

On the global front, Asian markets were mostly higher with the positive cues from Wall Street on upbeat corporate earnings results and expectations of more stimulus by global central banks lifting investor sentiment.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27885.43, down by 30.46 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 27861.97 and 27988.76. There were 15 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index, while one stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.64%, while Small cap index added 0.63%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.06%, Realty up by 0.62%, PSU up by 0.53%, FMCG up by 0.36% and Auto up by 0.24%, while Power down by 0.43%, IT down by 0.38%, Capital Goods down by 0.35%, Bankex down by 0.26% and TECK down by 0.26% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Adani Ports &Special up by 1.34%, Cipla up by 1.29%, Coal India up by 1.03%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 0.97% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.93%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 1.87%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.29%, Tata Steel down by 0.96%, Power Grid Corpn. down by 0.92% and Reliance Industries down by 0.83% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Government has raised its concern over poor implementation of the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act 1996, as the State and Union territories collected Rs 26,962.18 crore as construction cess to be solely spent on workers' welfare comes, but spent only, Rs 5,684.8 crore till March end this year.

The Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya has said that the responsibility of collecting cess and its utilization for welfare of workers lies with the respective state governments/UT administrations and state Building and other Construction Workers' Welfare boards and has asked the states to ensure that States Advisory Committees (SACs) under the law meet once every three months. SACs advice states on matters related to administration of legislations that are referred to them. The minister further pointed that “It has been noticed that SACs are not meeting regularly on account of which the implementation of the Act has suffered further.” The Labour Ministry had directed states/UTs to constitute SACs through an order issued on October 23, as they play very important role in the implementation of the Building and Other Construction workers Act 1996 and Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act 1996. Under the Act real estate developers has to pay 1% of the total cost of construction of the building as cess. The cess is levied to augmenting the resources of the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. The Act provides for regulating the employment and conditions of service of building and other construction workers and also provides for their safety, health and welfare measures and other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8566.60, up by 0.75 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 8553.65 and 8585.25. There were 26 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ACC up by 4.61%, BPCL up by 1.99%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.91%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.68% and Grasim Industries up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 1.85%, Bank Of Baroda down by 1.36%, HCL Tech. down by 1.23%, BHEL down by 1.21% and Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.14% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, Jakarta Composite increased 14.66 points or 0.28% to 5,257.48, Shanghai Composite increased 22.21 points or 0.73% to 3,050.11, Taiwan Weighted increased 48.88 points or 0.54% to 9,056.56, Nikkei 225 increased 120.99 points or 0.73% to 16,802.88 and Hang Seng increased 182.27 points or 0.83% to 22,064.75. On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 6.89 points or 0.41% to 1,662.72 and KOSPI Index decreased 4.26 points or 0.21% to 2,011.20.