Weak trade prevails in afternoon deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued their weak trade in the afternoon session on account of selling in frontline blue chip stocks such as Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel and ITC among others. Sentiments remained dampened with the report that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to keep key interest rates unchanged on April 6, 2017. The RBI shifted to a neutral stance from accommodative in February and this, in turn, may prompt the central bank to hold rates in the ensuing meet early next month. Furthermore, weak trend prevailed in global markets as investors brushed aside a positive lead from the US market and improvement in Chinese factory activity. However, the downside was capped with GST development, as with GST rollout looking imminent from July 1 after the Lok Sabha's approval, the Centre and states will sit together today to finalise rules and regulations of the new indirect tax regime. The GST Council has already approved five sets of rules relating to registration, payments, refund, invoice and returns. In scrip specific development, JBF Industries was trading in green with step subsidiary JBF Petrochemicals commissioning its Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) plant at Mangalore SEZ, Karnataka.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red as investors digested a mixed set of economic data out of East Asia and President Trump’s tense tweets about his meeting with China’s Xi Jinping next week. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29593.81, down by 53.61 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 29552.61 and 29665.24. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.66%, while Small cap index was up by 0.64%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 1.56%, Oil & Gas up by 1.51%, Metal up by 1.37%, Basic Materials up by 1.09% and PSU up by 0.98%, while Telecom down by 1.60%, TECK down by 0.70%, IT down by 0.67%, FMCG down by 0.51% and Bankex down by 0.31% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Industries up by 1.63%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.56%, Tata Steel up by 1.18%, Coal India up by 1.12% and SBI up by 0.90%. On the flip side, HDFC Bank down by 1.61%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.47%, ITC down by 1.06%, HDFC down by 0.98% and Cipla down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in wake of rising imports of downstream aluminium products in the country, the Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the government is considering all options, including the possibility of imposing minimum import price (MIP) on certain categories of aluminium products to protect the domestic industry.

The Aluminium Association of India had asked the government for imposition of MIP on aluminium. As per a study report prepared by Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants (India) Limited (MECON), India’s state-run engineering consulting firm, commissioned by the Aluminium Association of India to study solutions for protecting the domestic aluminium industry, loss of primary aluminium producers was Rs 943 crore in FY2014-15, which increased to Rs 4,283 crore during FY2015-16.

The primary aluminium producers were facing loss due to an increase in production cost and slump in London Metal Exchange (LME) price of aluminium from average $ 2,317.50/MT in 2011-12 to $ 1591.82/MT in 2015-16. Further, there was an increase in import from China amid weak domestic demand.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9160.45, down by 13.30 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 9152.10 and 9181.25. There were 29 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indian Oil Corp. up by 2.71%, Hindalco up by 2.52%, BPCL up by 1.86%, Reliance Industries up by 1.76% and ACC up by 1.73%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 3.94%, HDFC Bank down by 1.79%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.74%, Eicher Motors down by 1.56% and Tech Mahindra down by 1.19% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 154.69 points or 0.64% to 24,146.40, Nikkei 225 dropped 153.96 points or 0.81% to 18,909.26, Taiwan Weighted slipped 36.63 points or 0.37% to 9,811.52, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 6.8 points or 0.39% to 1,742.45, KOSPI Index shed 4.41 points or 0.2% to 2,160.23 and Jakarta Composite declined 3.36 points or 0.06% to 5,589.59.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 7.23 points or 0.23% to 3,217.47.