Benchmarks continue lackluster trade in late noon session

Sensex and the Nifty continue their lackluster trade in late noon session, mostly due to profit-booking in blue-chips. Investors remained cautious ahead of a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that will be closely watched for clues on US interest rate policy. Most of the sectoral indices were trading in negative territory with Capital Goods remained the top losing indices, down by over a percent. Weak global cues too dampened the domestic sentiment. European markets were trading lower on Friday amid the release of a report showing an unexpected drop in German business sentiment.

Back home, downside remained capped, with the report that India Inc's overseas borrowings fell by 44% to $1.2 billion in July this year as against $2.14 billion in the same period a year ago. In scrip specific development, Gammon Infrastructure Projects plunged nearly 5 per cent after the company reported a flat standalone net profit at Rs 5.88 crore for the first quarter ended June 30.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27750.40, down by 85.51 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 27745.50 and 27935.88. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.09%, while Small cap index was down by 0.12%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.21%, Oil & Gas up by 0.61% and Auto up by 0.57%, while Capital Goods down by 1.22%, IT down by 1.05%, TECK down by 0.81%, Bankex down by 0.67% and Realty down by 0.65% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 2.22%, Tata Motors up by 1.73%, Reliance Industries up by 1.27%, Cipla up by 0.70% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.54%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.79%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.95%, Adani Ports &Special down by 1.87%, Infosys down by 1.31% and SBI down by 1.14% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, despite various concerns, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (Brexit), has not come in the way of India’s engineering exports to UK, Germany and France. As per the Engineering Exports Promotion Council (EEPC), India mostly defied the general declining trend, giving positive growth to the manufacturing and high-tech exports, as Engineering exports to Britain went up by over 12 per cent to $ 215 million in July from $ 192 million in the same month of the previous year.

Not only Britain, shipments to Germany too improved handsomely, close to $ 200 million, rising by over 19 per cent year on year from $168 million in July 2015. Exports to France increased by 2.29 per cent to $ 86 million from $ 84 million for the period under review.

However, according to EEPC, despite reporting a rise in overall exports for the consecutive two months of May and June 2016, total exports slipped yet again in July contracting by 12.11 percent as against a positive growth by 2.57 percent in the previous month. Cumulative engineering exports continued to decline as engineering exports for the first four months of the current fiscal dropped by 5.82 percent to $ 20.27 billion in April-July 2016-17 from $ 21.53 billion during April-July 2015-16.

Chairman of the EEPC India, TS Bhasin said that, from the engineering exports point of view, it is important to see that our shipments went up to UK despite about 11 per cent trade-weighted drop in prices of Pound Sterling, making Britain's imports expensive. The positive trend to UK and other key European markets comes in the face of an overall negative growth in India's engineering exports.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8566.05, down by 26.15 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 8564.90 and 8622.95. There were 18 stocks advancing against 33 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were GAIL India up by 2.49%, Bharti Infratel up by 1.90%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 1.88%, Tata Motors up by 1.81% and Reliance Industries up by 1.35%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.58%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.79%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.77%, Adani Ports &Special down by 1.72% and HCL Tech. down by 1.64% were the top losers.

Asian market were trading mostly in green; Shanghai Composite increased 1.98 points or 0.06% to 3,070.31, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI jumped 2.54 points or 0.15% to 1,682.84, Taiwan Weighted was up by 16.25 points or 0.18% to 9,131.72 and Hang Seng climbed 94.59 points or 0.41% to 22,909.54. On other hand, Nikkei 225 decreased 195.24 points or 1.18% to 16,360.71, Jakarta Composite decreased 29.23 points or 0.54% to 5,424.89 and KOSPI Index decreased 5.42 points or 0.27% to 2,037.50.

European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 34.72 points or 0.33% to 10,494.87, France’s CAC declined 14.32 points or 0.32% to 4,392.29 and UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 6.47 points or 0.09% to 6,810.43.