Markets near low point of day on negative global cues

Indian equity markets extended early losses and currently trading near low point of the day following negative cues from Asian markets amid unsatisfactory Chinese manufacturing data and worsening euro zone debt crisis. Sensex and Nifty down by close to 1% on the back of cautious trades. On sectoral front all were trading in red. Weak economic data from the US is dragging down information technology stocks, while auto companies’ shares were trading lower on monthly sales volume data for May 2012.  Banking stocks surge in the early trade on hopes that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will cut interest rates to revive growth after sharp deceleration in GDP growth in Q4 March 2012 but currently erased all early gains. In currency market, domestic currency recovered from negative start and appreciated against dollar on Friday. On the global front, Asian shares were under pressure amid lasting worries about the financial situation in Europe. Back home, the market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 1,020 shares on the gaining side against 1,192 shares on the losing side while 101 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,065.32, down by 153.31 points or 0.94%. The index has touched a high 16,226.19 and low of 16,056.86 respectively. There were 4 stocks advancing against 23 declines while 3 remained unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were following the benchmarks; the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices down 0.61% and 0.04% respectively.

There was no gainer on the BSE sectoral space, while, Information Technology (IT) down by 2.03%, TECk down by 1.80%, Oil & Gas down by 1.59%, Power down by 1.41% and Capital Goods (CG) down by 1.25% were losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 1.09%, Hindalco Industries up by 1.07%, Tata Steel up by 0.60% and ICICI Bank up by 0.34%.

On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.26%, Jindal Steel down by 2.16%, Infosys down by 1.88%, TCS down by 1.88% and L&T down by 1.60%, were the major losers on the index.

Meanwhile, sugar production has already crossed the government’s estimates of 25.2 million tonnes in the current marketing year. As per the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), sugar mills have already produced 25.5 million tonnes of sugar till May of the 2011-12 which is 8% higher than the previous year’s 24.3 million tonnes.

The marketing year for sugar is from October-September. As per ISMA crushing is still on in the state of Tamil Nadu and will restart in Karnataka in the month of August. For these states sugar production has touched 3.72 million tonnes and 1.8 million tonnes, respectively, so far.  It is expected that they will add another 0.5 million tones and will take sugar production for the current marketing year to around 26 million tonnes. 

Production of sugar in Maharashtra, which is the country’s largest producing state for the sweetener, has increased marginally to 8.96 million tones and for Uttar Pradesh it was up by 18% to 6.95 million tones. Crushing in both the states has finished for the season.

Given the expectation of higher production of sugar, the government has already permitted export of 3 million tonnes in equal tranches this year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,879.70, lower by 44.55 points or 0.90%. The index has touched a high and low of 4,925.00 and 4,871.50 respectively. There were 7 stocks advancing against 43 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were ITC up by 1.50%, Hindalco up by 0.99%, JP Associates up by 0.72%, Maruti up by 0.49% and ICICI Bank up by 0.36%. 

On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 3.86%, Cairn down by 3.25%, SAIL down by 3.15%, Bank of Baroda down by 3.04% and IDFC down by 2.87% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices continued to reel under pressure; Jakarta Composite down 0.23%, Straits Times Index  down  0.70%, KOSPI Composite Index  down 0.49%, Taiwan Weighted down 2.68%, Nikkei 225 was down 1.20%, KLSE Composite down by 0.44%, Shanghai Composite down 0.15% and Hang Seng Index down 0.01.