Markets slip in negative territory; Nifty trades around 5,300

Indian equity markets continued trading flat and currently shifted in the negative territory with marginal losses following weak trend in the Asian markets. NSE Nifty continued to move in a narrow range around the 5,300 level, while Sensex lost 21 points. Reliance Industries' fourth quarter earnings were unable to help market rally today, though company surprised the street by reporting gross refining margin at $7.6 a barrel as against $6.8 a barrel quarter on quarter basis. On sectoral front, shares from information technology, realty, power and capital goods sectors drifted lower. Automobile and bank stocks are off their early highs and stocks from FMCG, metal and healthcare sectors too have lost some ground. Select oil stocks were trading higher. On the global front, Asian stocks continued trading lower. Back home, the market breadth favoring the positive trend; there were 1,322 shares on the gaining side against 1,041 shares on the losing side while 106 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,352.53, down by 21.31 points or 0.12%. The index has touched a high and low 17,444.18 and 17,336.89 respectively. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The broader indices too pared some gains; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.01% and Small cap index was up by 0.26%.

The major gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Oil & Gas up by 0.41%, Health Care up by 0.10%, Metal up by 0.06% and Fast Moving Consumer Goods up by 0.01%. While Realty down by 1.05%, Information Technology down by 1.00%, Power down by 0.87%, TECK down by 0.79% and Capital Goods down by 0.58% remained the major losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 1.40%, RIL up by 1.03%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.51%, HDFC up by 0.45% and Coal India up by 0.40%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 1.98%, Tata Power down by 1.86%, Infosys down by 1.76%, BHEL down by 1.75% and Jindal Steel down by 1.18% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, major economic reforms are unlikely to happen before the next Parliamentary elections in 2014. As per Chief Economic Advisor, Kaushik Basu there is a slowdown in decision making.  The unearthing of a series of corruption and scams is having its impact on the psyche of the bureaucracy, who is currently not willing to take risks.

Also a coalition government, the ongoing battle against inflation, slackening of the global economy and drop in agricultural production have slowed the reform process. However, reforms are expected to pick up after 2015 when the new government comes to power. The new government, if in majority, would start with the reforms in a big way because there is a sense that they need to pick up urgently.

Post 2014 a rush of important reforms would come and after 2015 it is expected that India would be one of the fastest growing economies of the world. Opening up of the retail sector has been identified as a major reform.

Basu, who is accompanying Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to the IMF- World Bank meet, has made these observations while addressing the concerns expressed by the US corporate on some recent decisions of the Indian government and its reluctance to initiate the series of next phase of reforms.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,282.95, down by 7.90 points or 0.15%. The index has touched a high and low of 5,310.55 and 5,274.75 respectively. There were 15 stocks advancing against 35 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were SAIL up by 3.50%, ACC up by 1.47%, Tata Steel up by 1.47%, Reliance up by 1.18% and Maruti up by 0.64%.

On the flip side, RCom down by 3.01%, DLF down by 2.08%, IDFC down by 1.90%, Tata Power down by 1.86% and Infosys down by 1.75% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined by 0.49%, Hang Seng slid 0.83%, KLSE Composite descended by 0.42%, Nikkei 225 lost 0.20%, Straits Times was down by 0.34%, Seoul Composite surrendered 0.10% and Taiwan Weighted contracted by 0.35%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite up by 0.11%, were the only gainers on the index.