Benchmarks continue to trade in red in noon session

Grappling with weak global cause, Indian benchmark indices continued to trade in red in noon session. Selling pressure was witnessed across the board, with sectors like Realty, Utilities and Power witnessing brutal assaults as they got clobbered by 1.24%, 1.08% and 1.03% respectively. While counters like Industrials and Capital Goods too suffered severe pounding. Investors turned jittery over Former finance minister P Chidambaram’s comment that a more realistic deadline for rolling out the goods and services tax was October 1, instead of the scheduled date of July 1. While maintaining GST would be good for the country in the long-term, the senior Congress leader cautioned the government saying that implementation of the mega tax reform could be inflationary in the short-term. He cited the preparation time needed for small and medium-scale enterprises to get on to the new tax reform structure and the time needed for activating the GSTN platform as the main reasons why he thought October was a more realistic deadline. Adding the woes, leading exporters' body EEPC India has raised a red flag against the debilitating impact of sharp rise in rupee against dollar in the last three months on exports, which may slip off from the recovery path, if the situation persists further. Since the first week of January, rupee has gained by close to six per cent, eroding significantly the exporters' margins and more importantly the competitive edge against India's trade rivals in the international markets. Furthermore, some investors remained on the sidelines and refrained from any buying activity ahead of key economic data—IIP for February and consumer price index (CPI) for March—to be released after the market hours.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly lower on Wednesday as tensions continue to ratchet up on the Korean Peninsula following a warning from North Korea of a nuclear attack on the US. Further, Japanese markets declined to their lowest in more than four months as rising geopolitical tensions dragged all sectors into negative territory, with exporters hit hard as the safe haven yen spiked to a five-month high. Meanwhile, US markets closed marginally in red in the last session, though the major averages recovered from the early lows and were well off their worst levels of the day.

Back home, several auto stocks declined after the report that automobile manufacturers are saddled with inventory of more than 140,000 BS-III compliant vehicles valued at Rs 5,633 crore despite heavy discounting last month after the Supreme Court halted the sale and registration of vehicles that fail to comply with BS-IV emission standards from April 1, 2017. In scrip specific development, Berger Paints gained in otherwise weak market after the company entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chugoku Marine Paints of Japan for cooperation and collaboration in the field of marine and related industrial paints in India.

The market breadth remained pessimistic, as there were 780 shares on the gaining side against 1826 shares on the losing side, while 101 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29620.80, down by 167.55 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 29549.74 and 29838.82. There were 4 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.26%, while Small cap index down by 0.70%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty down by 1.24%, Utilities down by 1.08%, Power down by 1.03%, Industrials down by 0.85% and Capital Goods down by 0.78%, while there were no gainers on BSE sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 0.36%, Coal India up by 0.33%, Infosys up by 0.29% and HDFC Bank up by 0.19%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 1.81%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.52%, Power Grid down by 1.40%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 1.20% and Tata Motors down by 1.17% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with an aim to reduce food wastage and double farmers’ income, the food processing industries ministry will soon launch an umbrella programme ‘Scheme for Agro-Marine produce Processing and Development of Agro-clusters’ (SAMPADA) for food processing sector with an outlay of Rs 6,000 crore to integrate current and new schemes.

Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal has said that her ministry would soon take up the matter with the cabinet for the approval of scheme. She noted that it will include ongoing schemes such as mega food parks and cold chain projects as well as three new schemes that they will launch. Adding further, she said that under the new scheme, they will provide up to Rs 10 crore of subsidy grant for creating infrastructure at each of these clusters so that seamless transfer of food products from producing to consuming centres becomes a reality.

The minister also emphasized that the government has so far sanctioned 42 mega food parks and 234 cold chain projects with 139 lakh tonnes of preserving and processing capacity of agro-produce worth Rs 35,000 crore. She said that the post-harvest losses is estimated at Rs 92,000 crore annually and added that these food parks and cold chains would help in cutting this wastage.  She also noted that the government is taking steps to boost food processing sector as part of its objective to bring down post-harvest losses preferably to zero level, provide quality food to consumers at cheaper price and for doubling of farmers' income.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9186.40, down by 50.60 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 9161.80 and 9246.40. There were 12 stocks advancing against 39 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Eicher Motors up by 2.28%, Ambuja Cement up by 0.88%, Bharti Infratel up by 0.68%, Coal India up by 0.52% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.35%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.86%, ZEEL down by 1.84%, Tata Steel down by 1.76%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.62% and Grasim Industries down by 1.44% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 1.26%, Hang Seng slipped 0.1%, Taiwan Weighted shed 0.15% and Shanghai Composite was down by 0.31%. On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 0.09%, KOSPI Index rose 0.1% and Jakarta Composite was up by 0.28%.