Benchmarks continue lackluster trade

Indian equity indices continued the lackluster trade in the last session of trade, hovering in negative territory in absence of any buying interest. Investors turned wary ahead of the August F&O expiry and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's speech on Friday. However, losses remained capped with the Ind-Ra has revised India's economic growth forecast to 7.8 per cent for the ongoing fiscal on better monsoon, but said the economy is just 'chugging along' despite the euphoria emerging after the formation Modi government at the Centre. In scrip specific development, Reliance Infrastructure rose after the company completed the sale of its cement unit to Birla Corp on Monday. Indraprastha Gas gained after the company posting about 44 percent jump in its June-quarter profit, ahead of market expectations.

On global front, European stocks opened slightly higher, buoyed by data which showed that the euro zone economy had yet to feel a negative impact from the 'Brexit' vote.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27862.36, down by 123.18 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 27861.88 and 28028.98. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.69%, while Small cap index was down by 0.23%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.27% and TECK up by 0.97%, while Oil & Gas down by 1.87%, Power down by 1.54%, Capital Goods down by 1.50%, PSU down by 1.47% and Metal down by 1.43% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 1.63%, Infosys up by 1.62%, Asian Paints up by 0.41%, Adani Ports &Special up by 0.39% and GAIL India up by 0.32%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 2.93%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.92%, Tata Steel down by 1.91%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.62% and Sun Pharma down by 1.23% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to speed up infrastructure development and investment to boost economic growth, government has reviewed the performance of key infrastructure sectors including renewable energy, aviation and railways.The Prime Minister has stated that the cumulative installed capacity of renewable energy crossed 44 GigaWatts (GW), targets have been met for various components and projects under Centre and state policies.

In the aviation sector, government reviewed progress in key policy areas such as safety and connectivity. It was noted that eight Indian airports are ranked among the top five globally in their respective categories and added that further steps will be taken to boost regional connectivity and improve customer satisfaction indices at airports. In the power sector, 3.5 crore LED bulbs have been distributed in current fiscal year. Indian Railways has achieved a target of daily passenger movement of 2.25 crore and around 240 unmanned crossings have been eliminated in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

In the ports sector, there has been considerable progress in average vessel turnaround time. Besides, in the rural housing sector 6.94 lakh rural houses have been completed in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, as compared with a target of 6 lakh houses. And in the petroleum and natural gas sector, the government sought to know the steps being taken to ramp up ethanol blending of petrol and over 15 crore households were covered under Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG in FY16.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8596.85, down by 32.30 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 8590.85 and 8635.85. There were 15 stocks advancing against 36 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech. up by 1.99%, Bharti Infratel up by 1.93%, TCS up by 1.81%, Infosys up by 1.51% and Bank of Baroda up by 1.25%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 5.11%, BPCL down by 4.10%, Tata Power down by 3.89%, NTPC down by 2.54% and Aurobindo Pharma down by 2.15% were the top losers.

Asian market were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng increased 1.02 points or 0% to 22,998.93, Shanghai Composite was up 4.9 points or 0.16% to 3,089.71, KOSPI Index climbed 7.77 points or 0.38% to 2,049.93, Taiwan Weighted jumped 49.12 points or 0.55% to 9,030.93.on other hand, Nikkei 225 decreased 100.83 points or 0.61% to 16,497.36, Jakarta Composite declined 49.66 points or 0.92% to 5,377.52, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dropped 7.86 points or 0.46% to 1,683.21.

European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 37.08 points or 0.84% to 4,427.02, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 41.07 points or 0.6% to 6,869.61, Germany’s DAX surged 86.74 points or 0.83% to 10,581.09.