Benchmarks continue lackluster trade in late noon session

Indian equity indices continued the lackluster trade in the late noon session, tracking heavy selling in global markets following re-emergence of US Fed rate hike concerns and lacking any buying interest. Investors also turned cautious ahead of macroeconomic data of IIP for July and inflation data for August scheduled to be released later in the day. Weak trend in the global market has mainly weighed down, European markets made a weak start, as hawkish comments from several Federal Reserve officers and the decision by the ECB last week to keep policy unchanged clouded the monetary-policy outlook.

Back home, most of the sectoral indices were trading in negative territory with Realty losing the most, down by over four and half percent. Selling was broad based with both mid cap and small cap indices trading with a cut of around two percent. In scrip specific development, ONGC fell over 2 percent after oil prices slumped 4 percent on Friday on data showing increased oil drilling activity in the United States.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28384.58, down by 412.67 points or 1.43% after trading in a range of 28251.31 and 28481.11. There were 4 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 2.75%, while Small cap index was down by 1.94%.

The two gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.07% and TECK up by 0.46%, while Realty down by 4.55%, Metal down by 3.94%, Capital Goods down by 2.99%, Auto down by 2.93%, PSU down by 2.66% were the losing indices on BSE.

The gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 1.93%, Reliance Industries up by 0.61%, TCS up by 0.30% and Wipro up by 0.18%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 4.53%, Tata Steel down by 4.32%, Tata Motors down by 3.94%, SBI down by 3.73% and Axis Bank down by 3.50% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, according to the latest report from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s forex reserves increased by $989.5 million to an all-time high of $367.76 billion during the week ended September 2, 2016. 

Valuation of foreign currency assets increased by $952.2 million in the week and stood at $342.23 billion. Gold reserves rose $58.1 million to $21.64 billion at the end of the reporting week. 

SDRs’ (Special Drawing Rights) valuations decreased by $8.0 million and stood at $1488.6 billion in the week. This valuation is inclusive of SDR 3,082.5 million (equivalent to $4,883 million) allocated under general allocation and SDR 214.6 million (equivalent to $340 million) allocated under special allocation by International Monetary Fund (IMF) done on August 28, 2009 and September 9, 2009, respectively.

The country’s reserve position in the IMF during the week ended September 2, 2016 decreased by $12.8 billion and stood at $2397.2 billion. Reserve position in the IMF, i.e., Reserve Tranche Position (RTP) which was shown as a memo item from May 23, 2003 to March 26, 2004 has been included in the reserves from the week ended April 2, 2004 in keeping with the international best practice.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8718.90, down by 147.80 points or 1.67% after trading in a range of 8699.40 and 8746.95. There were 6 stocks advancing against 45 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 1.92%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.23%, HCL Tech. up by 0.95%, Reliance Industries up by 0.59% and TCS up by 0.24%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 8.33%, Bank of Baroda down by 5.64%, Yes Bank down by 5.16%, Adani Ports &Special down by 4.48% and Tata Steel down by 4.47% were the top losers.

Asian market were trading in red; Hang Seng slumped by 809.1 points or 3.36% to 23,290.60, Nikkei 225 declined 292.84 points or 1.73% to 16,672.92, Taiwan Weighted slumped 106.63 points or 1.18% to 8,947.06, Jakarta Composite dropped 89.16 points or 1.66% to 5,281.92, Shanghai Composite decreased 56.88 points or 1.85% to 3,021.98, KOSPI Index declined 46.39 points or 2.28% to 1,991.48, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 4.94 points or 0.29% to 1,686.44.

European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased by 207.52 points or 1.96% to 10,365.92, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 111.77 points or 1.65% to 6,665.18 and France’s CAC decreased 91.88 points or 2.05% to 4,399.52.