Key benchmarks hover near the day's low

Indian equity benchmarks extended their losses and were hovering near lowest point of the day in the afternoon session, on broad based selling with frontline gauges trading below their crucial 30,000 (Sensex) and 9,300 (Nifty) levels, suffering losses of over half a percent. Investors overlooked Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) President Shobana Kamineni’s statement that India can achieve a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 10 percent by fiscal year 2019-20 on the back of tremendous opportunities available in the economy. She added that the drivers for this step up in growth would include the benefits from implementation of GST and greater participation of women in the labour force. Besides, a mixed lead from global markets also kept investors nervous. Meanwhile, the rupee weakened further by 11 paise to 64.28 against the US dollar in early trade on increased demand for the American currency from importers and banks. In scrip specific development, Godrej Properties was up by over one and half percent after receiving its board’s approval to sell its entire stake in Godrej Investment Advisers, a wholly owned Subsidiary of the company.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, as investors turned cautious ahead of the release of the U.S. Labor Department's closely-watched monthly jobs data later today. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29901.62, down by 224.59 points or 0.75% after trading in a range of 29869.72 and 30176.55. There were 6 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.79%, while Small cap index was down by 0.48%.

The only gaining sectoral index on the BSE was Consumer Durables up by 0.73%, while Metal down by 2.71%, Basic Materials down by 1.44%, Industrials down by 1.31%, Utilities down by 1.14% and Oil & Gas down by 1.12% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Asian Paints up by 1.45%, SBI up by 0.72%, Coal India up by 0.50%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.27% and Dr. Reddys Lab up by 0.06%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 3.55%, ONGC down by 3.15%, Tata Steel down by 2.34%, Axis Bank down by 1.68% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.55% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, demonetisation move seems to have taken its toll on the aviation sector too, as India lost its fastest growing domestic aviation market tag to China in the month of March, posting a lower domestic revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) growth rate. According to International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) latest report, the country’s RPK growth rate dropped in March to 14.6 per cent from 17 per cent in February, mainly because of demonetization move, which has brought it down to the third position among major aviation markets like Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and the US for the month.

The report further said that India was at the top of the global charts for the domestic air passenger growth for 23 straight months until February. Besides, the country had also posted over 20 per cent growth in domestic passenger market for 13 consecutive months until January this year. Though, IATA noted that even if the demand for domestic air travel has witnessed drop, it was still twice that of the global average which stood at 7.6 per cent in March.

China overtook India as the fastest growing domestic market with passenger traffic at 15.1 per cent, posting the fastest year-on-year domestic growth rate for the first time in two years due to its robust services sector growth as well as supply developments. Global passenger traffic demand rose 6.8%, compared to the same month a year ago, while capacity grew 6.1% and load factor climbed by half a percentage point to 80.4% for the month of March.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9299.35, down by 60.55 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 9282.55 and 9377.10. There were 16 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indiabulls Housing up by 1.40%, Asian Paints up by 1.34%, ACC up by 1.29%, HCL Tech. up by 1.04% and Bharti Infratel up by 0.99%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 4.29%, Tata Motors down by 3.36%, ONGC down by 3.07%, Tata Motors - DVR down by 2.81% and Tata Steel down by 2.21% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 3.84 points or 0.22% to 1,762.51, Jakarta Composite rose 12.81 points or 0.23% to 5,682.26 and KOSPI Index was up by 21.57 points or 0.97% to 2,241.24. On the flip side, Hang Seng decreased 230.23 points or 0.93% to 24,453.65, Taiwan Weighted was down by 67.7 points or 0.68% to 9,899.94 and Shanghai Composite declined 25.38 points or 0.81% to 3,101.99.