Benchmarks continue to trade in red in late afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade in red in late afternoon session on the back of selling in Metal, Realty, PSU and Auto counters. Sentiments remained dampened with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that people in financial markets must make a fair contribution to nation building. The comments were hinted at raising taxes on stock market income. Sentiments weakened further despite Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s clarification that there is no intention of government to impose long-term capital gains tax on securities transactions in the upcoming budget. Inventors failed to get any sense of relief with the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that demonetisation will help to increase government revenue and lower fiscal deficit. On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green despite thin trading volumes because of the Christmas holidays, with some major markets in the region were closed. Back home, in scrip specific development, M&M slipped over a one per cent on plan to hike prices of vehicles by up to Rs 26,500 from January.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25899.50, down by 141.20 points or 0.54% after trading in a range of 25753.74 and 26008.57. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index dropped 1.62%, while Small cap index was down by 1.43%.

The sole gaining sectoral indices on the BSE was FMCG up by 0.01%, while Metal down by 2.62%, Realty down by 2.29%, PSU down by 1.41%, Auto down by 1.13% and Bankex down by 1.04% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.07%, NTPC up by 0.43%, Reliance Industries up by 0.22%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 0.19% and ITC up by 0.18%. On the flip side, Cipla down by 4.81%, Tata Steel down by 1.84%, Tata Motors down by 1.66%, ONGC down by 1.63% and Adani Ports &Special down by 1.46% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Industry body, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) which had earlier said that the demonetisation move of the government will strike a blow to the illegal economy and would have a dampening impact on inflation, giving room to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut the policy rates, has said that the demonetisation move has created an enormous opportunity to channelise public savings into productive assets.

The industry body added that identification data of the borrowing entity can be procured through PAN,TIN/CIN/GSTIN (post launch of GST), Articles of Association & Memorandum of Association and financial information can be availed from sources like annual returns which are available with Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) as scanned documents, Form 26 AS with Income Tax authorities, and Provident Fund data with Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). It said that while customers will gain from hurdle-less access to credit, the banks may choose to offer loans at varied interest rates depending on the strength of data of the customer.

The chamber further suggested that abundant data on SMEs and corporates through various sources can be made available to banks and other lending institutions, pointing out that banks will benefit from authentic financial and other data to accurately identify the right customers. To accomplish this, CII has recommended consolidation of SMEs and corporates financial data with banks to assess creditworthiness of borrowers.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7931.20, down by 54.55 points or 0.68% after trading in a range of 7893.80 and 7970.05. There were 10 stocks advancing against 41 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.20%, HCL Tech. up by 0.30%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 0.25%, NTPC up by 0.25% and Reliance Industries up by 0.21%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 5.08%, Cipla down by 4.75%, Aurobindo Pharma down by 3.48%, Bank of Baroda down by 3.01% and Bharti Infratel down by 2.54% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in green; KOSPI Index increased 1.85 points or 0.09% to 2,037.75, Shanghai Composite increased 12.42 points or 0.4% to 3,122.57 and Taiwan Weighted increased 31.9 points or 0.35% to 9,110.54. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 31.03 points or 0.16% to 19,396.64.

European stock markets remained closed on account of Christmas holiday.