Rupee’s fall to perilous ‘56/dollar’ mark prompts additional weakness for D-street

Bourses approaching the final leg of trade, have puffed up losses, on account of growing investor’s fleet against risky equities, after the vulnerable Rupee crashed below the perilous ‘56/dollar’ mark, thereby flagging concerns over India’s growth story in the minds of already finicky foreign investors. Hammered by stocks belonging from Consumer Durable, Auto and Realty counters, 30 scrip sensitive index, Sensex, is currently languishing below the 16,000 crucial level, with prominent loss of over 50 points, while the widely followed index, Nifty, continued to wobble below the 4,900 bastion. The trend was not exceptional for broader indices, which enticed additional weakness in sync with frontline indices.

Nagging fears of a messy Greek exit from the euro zone, mainly derailed the performance of Asian counterparts, which alongside European shares, witnessed the brunt of profit booking. However, even Bank of Japan’s standstill stance, weighed on the sentiment of Asian pacific region.

Back home, Information Technology counter also managed to depict audacity for second trading session, as deprecation of rupee, came as blessing in disguise to the software exporter’s, that derive chunk of their currency in American greenback. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of declines, which thrashed advances in the ratio of 1607:962, while 128 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,958.85, down by 67.56 points or 0.42% after trading as high as 16,002.03 and as low as 16,002.03. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index.

The broader indices slid deeper into red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined by 0.49% and 0.69% respectively.

Information Technology up by 0.05% was the lone gainer on the index , while Consumer Durables down 1.93%, Auto down 0.90%, Realty down 0.75%, Metal down 0.69% and TECK down 0.62% were the major laggards in the space.

GAIL India up 3.33%, BHEL up 1.49%, Coal India up 0.85%, SBI up 0.80% and Mahindra & Mahindra up 0.61% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Bharti Airtel down by 4.28%, Jindal Steel down by 2.82%, Sterlite Industries down 1.88%, Hero Moto down by 1.71% and Bajaj Auto down 1.49% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, Government’s subsidy outflow in 2011-12 was estimated to be Rs 216,297 crore as compared to Rs 57,125 crore in 2006-07. This represents an increase of Rs 1.59 lakh crore during the six year period. The increase has been on account of the rise in subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum.

Food subsidy bill that stood at Rs 24,014 crore in 2006-07 increased to Rs 72,823 crore in 2011-12. Fertiliser subsidy was up to Rs 67,199 crore from the earlier Rs 26,222 crore during the six year period.

Petroleum subsidy grew to a whopping Rs 68,481 crore in 2011-12, from a comparatively small Rs 2,699 crore in 2006-07, while other subsidies payout stood at Rs 7,794 crore in FY’12 from Rs 4,190 crore in FY’07.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,836.35, lower by 24.15 points or 0.50% after trading as high as 4,853.75 and as low as 4,803.95. There were 13 stocks advancing against 37 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were GAIL up 3.54%, BHEL up by 1.80%, Ranabxy up by 1.62%, IDFC up 1.39% and Coal India up by 0.92%.

Bharti Airtel down by 4.42%, Kotak Bank down by 2.93%, Jindal Steel down by 2.92%, Sesa Goa down by 2.77% and Bank of Baroda down 2.05% were the major losers on the index.

In the Asian space, Shanghai Composite declined 0.42%, Hang Seng plunged 1.28%, Jakarta Composite sank 1.33%, KLSE Composite dropped 0.46%, Nikkei 225 got pounded by 1.98%, Straits Times Index plummeted by 1.36%%, KOSPI Composite slumped 1.10% and Taiwan Weighted dived 1.75%.

The European markets got off to a negative start as France’s CAC 40 fell 1.70%, Germany’s DAX sank 1.74% and United Kingdom’s FTSE plunged 1.67%.