Bloodbath continues on the street in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued their weak trade in the late afternoon session on account of selling in frontline blue-chip counters. Sentiments remained downbeat on fears that incoming US President Donald Trump's policies would be inflationary, leading to higher US interest rates and denting the appeal of emerging markets. Domestic sentiments also hit with the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement where he hinted to a probable delay in the rollout of the indirect tax regime. Investors failed to get any sense of relief with the NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya’s statement that the government's recent move to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1000 rupee notes could lead to moderation in inflation unless there is tangible action from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). On the sectoral front, most of the aviation sector stocks were trading in red with the private report that the government would impose a new levy on some domestic flights. In scrip specific development, SBI fell over 3% after the bank has posted a 34.5% drop in its second quarter net profit at Rs 2,538 crore on a standalone basis.

On the global front, European stocks were trading mostly in green on Friday, on expectation that President-elect Donald Trump's attempts to boost the economy with fiscal stimulus may fuel inflation and prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates far faster than expected.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27059.58, down by 458.10 points or 1.66% after trading in a range of 26992.77 and 27344.85. There were 2 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index declined 2.91%, while Small cap index was down by 2.69%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables down by 4.47%, Realty down by 4.06%, Auto down by 2.88%, TECK down by 2.07% and Bankex down by 1.94%, while there were no gainers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 4.51% and HDFC Bank up by 0.30%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 4.50%, Adani Ports &Special down by 4.43%, Hero MotoCorp down by 4.09%, ICICI Bank down by 4.02% and HDFC down by 3.72% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, road transport and highways, and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the Government is planning to invest Rs 25 lakh crore in highways and shipping sectors in the next five year. He estimated that this will create almost five crore jobs and also boost the gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 3%. According to Minister, till now projects worth Rs 4 lakh crore have been awarded, including projects worth Rs 3.17 lakh crore in highways and Rs 80,000 crore in shipping. He added that the road construction pace per day has increased to 22 km whereas, the ministry has set a target of 40 km a day and it is working on it.

The Minister said the target of the road transport and highways ministry was to double the country’s highway network to 2 lakh km. The length of National Highways has already been increased to 1.65 lakh km, from the earlier 96,000 km. On poor highway connectivity in the northeastern states, he said that the Ministry will make an investment over Rs 1 lakh crore in the region to upgrade the road construction. He further said that the highways construction target for the current fiscal year is 15,000 km, of which about 3,600 km had been constructed till October.

Gadkari has said that government is in the process of finalizing project reports of 12 expressways soon and work on the same will start. Two key projects, Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways will be completed in the next seven months. He said that the master plans have been finalized for the 12 major ports and based on the same, 142 port capacity expansion projects worth Rs 91,434 crore have been identified for implementation over the next 20 years. Further, the minister sees immense potential of waterways in the country, including cruise tourism, and the government is working to give a push in this direction. The government has already approved conversion of 111 rivers across the country into waterways.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8365.00, down by 160.75 points or 1.89% after trading in a range of 8352.85 and 8460.60. There were 2 stocks advancing against 49 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 4.56% and HDFC Bank up by 0.08%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 5.22%, Adani Ports &Special down by 4.94%, Yes Bank down by 4.89%, Asian Paints down by 4.43% and Hero MotoCorp down by 4.32% were the top losers.

Asian market were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 308.02 points or 1.35% to 22,531.09, Jakarta Composite slumped 194.54 points or 3.57% to 5,255.77, Taiwan Weighted plunged 194.42 points or 2.12% to 8,957.76, KOSPI Index declined 18.17 points or 0.91% to 1,984.43 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dropped 15.73 points or 0.95% to 1,637.01. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite increased 24.76 points or 0.78% to 3,196.04 and Nikkei 225 rose 30.37 points or 0.18% to 17,374.79.

European markets were trading mostly in green; France’s CAC was up by 6.23 points or 0.14% to 4,537.18 and Germany’s DAX increased 47.83 points or 0.45% to 10,677.95. On the other hand, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 13.03 points or 0.19% to 6,814.95.