Indian bourses continue weak trade; Consumer Durables drag

Indian bourses continued their weak trade in the afternoon session on back of sustained selling activities by investors and funds amid weak Asian cues. At present, both Sensex and Nifty were trading below the crucial 26,500 and 8,150 levels, respectively. The sentiments were pessimistic after Assocham said that the interest rates cut prospects in the near future by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may be adversely affected due to factors such as continuous pressure on rupee against dollar, firming of the US interest rates and hardening of the crude oil prices. Further, the losses in Consumer Durables, Realty, Capital Goods and IT stocks also aided to pessimistic milieu. Traders were unable to get any relief with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari’s statement that India’s infrastructure sector has the potential of boosting GDP growth up to 3% and efforts are being put in by the centre to achieve this objective. In scrip specific development, Bharat Petroleum Corporation was up by around one and half percent after OMCs hiked price of petrol by Rs 2.21 per litre and diesel by Rs 1.79 a litre in line with global trends.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in red as the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates and a strong dollar stemming from the incoming Trump Administration's purported policies of cutting taxes and spending heavily threatened to suck capital out of emerging markets.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26428.29, down by 61.27 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 26369.28 and 26505.66. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.23%, while Small cap index was down by 0.08%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.22%, PSU up by 0.33%, Power up by 0.13%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.95%, Realty down by 0.59%, Capital Goods down by 0.46%, TECK down by 0.46% and IT down by 0.33% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 2.18%, Tata Motors up by 1.08%, ICICI Bank up by 0.92%, Lupin up by 0.79% and Cipla up by 0.72%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.38%, Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.27%, Adani Ports &Special down by 1.25%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.16% and Maruti Suzuki down by 1.04% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with an aim to boost economic growth, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the next budget in February 2017, will focus on encouraging more public as well as private spending. He also said that India is aiming to become a developed economy and at current 7-7.5% GDP growth does not satisfy its requirements. Therefore, he said that spending more and now is the focus and added that infrastructure spending certainly needs a booster.

On the impact of demonetisation move on the economy, Jaitley agreed that altering this normal is extremely disruptive but in the long run the country would have a higher GDP, a higher revenue and probably far cleaner economy and far cleaner public life. He also said that it was a courageous decision to withdraw 86 per cent of the paper currency, replace it and then say that replacement will now be substantially and significantly in digital.

Jaitley further said that there is long-term potential of more resources getting into the system and that is going to be the top priority. Therefore, he said that next budget should concentrate on areas where the country was lacking, whether in terms of encouraging investment of the private sector and so on. For the budget session next year, he said that, the central government is expected to advance the date of budget presentation for 2017-18 to February 1, 2017 as against the usual date of February 28.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8121.45, down by 18.00 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 8105.35 and 8132.50. There were 21 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Aurobindo Pharma up by 2.28%, GAIL India up by 2.20%, Tata Power up by 1.17%, Tata Motors up by 1.00% and Cipla up by 0.92%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 1.95%, Asian Paints down by 1.49%, Adani Ports &Special down by 1.37%, Bosch down by 1.36% and Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.33% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 175.03 points or 0.79% to 21,845.72, Taiwan Weighted declined 87.46 points or 0.94% to 9,239.32, Nikkei 225 shed 9.55 points or 0.05% to 19,391.60, Jakarta Composite was down by 8.7 points or 0.17% to 5,222.95, KOSPI Index slipped 3.85 points or 0.19% to 2,038.39, Shanghai Composite dipped 3.5 points or 0.11% to 3,119.48 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 2.27 points or 0.14% to 1,635.52.