Indian bourses trade with modest losses

Key benchmark indices were trading with small losses in early afternoon deals, on account of selling in frontline blue chip counters. Sentiments remained subdued with private report that consumer confidence in India declined in the second quarter of this year amid concerns regarding job security and lower optimism on employment prospects. Domestic sentiment was also weakened with report that as many as 322 infrastructure projects worth Rs 150 crore or above each have seen cost overrun of Rs 1.71 lakh crore due to delays and other reasons by March 2017. Further, subdued trend in Asian markets and selling which was witnessed in IT, TECK and Power stocks, too weighed on sentiments. In the currency front, the rupee firmed up by 10 paise to 64.04 against the US dollar in early trade on selling of greenback by banks and exporters. In scrip specific development, Union Bank of India was up by around a percent after entering into a corporate agency agreement with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and Cholamandalam MS General Insurance for distribution of their insurance products.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as investors remained unconvinced about US President Donald Trump's ability to fulfill his economic agenda, even as the departure of his controversial policy strategist raised hopes of some progress. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31451.73, down by 72.95 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 31435.31 and 31641.81. There were 15 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.20%, while Small cap index was down by 0.09%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.07%, Bankex up by 0.35%, Basic Materials up by 0.29%, Consumer Durables up by 0.26% and PSU up by 0.20%, while IT down by 1.15%, TECK down by 1.06%, Power down by 0.49%, Realty down by 0.48% and Telecom down by 0.43% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 1.73%, Axis Bank up by 1.54%, ONGC up by 0.87%, Tata Steel up by 0.79% and TCS up by 0.72%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 3.85%, Cipla down by 1.63%, Tata Motors down by 1.20%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.12% and Power Grid down by 1.03% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued stringent rules to curb call drops with a maximum penalty of Rs 10 lakh on cellular service providers if they fail to meet the voice quality benchmarks for three successive quarters. The regulator also noted that this would be effective from October 1, 2017.

TRAI Chairman RS Sharma has said that they have proposed financial disincentive in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. He also said that it is a graded penalty system depending on the performance of the telecom network. Besides, TRAI Secretary in-charge S K Gupta has explained that if an operator failed to meet call drop benchmark in the consecutive quarter, the penalty amount would be increased 1.5 times, and for failure in the third consecutive month, this will be doubled. However, he said that there is a cap of Rs 10 lakh on financial disincentive. 

Under the previous Quality of Service Rule, telcos need to pay Rs 50,000 to 1 lakh for call drops or if they are not meeting the norms. Now the regulator has made measurement of call drop rate more granular from circle level to mobile towers in a circle. Under the revised rule, 90% of base transceiver station or mobile site in a telecom circle 90% of time should not fail to handle 98% of the call, which means not more than 2% calls handled by them should drop. During busy hours of the day, not more than 3% call drop should be registered on 90% of mobile towers in a telecom circle. Besides, the regulator also fixed the benchmark for radio-link time out technology, reportedly used by telecom operators for masking call drops.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9829.95, down by 7.45 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 9819.70 and 9884.35. There were 29 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 1.81%, Axis Bank up by 1.74%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.18%, Vedanta up by 0.99% and Eicher Motors up by 0.98%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 3.82%, Cipla down by 1.62%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.35%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.06% and Tata Motors down by 1.03% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 dipped 77.28 points or 0.4% to 19,393.13, Jakarta Composite decreased 27.04 points or 0.46% to 5,866.80, KOSPI Index was down by 3.37 points or 0.14% to 2,355.00 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI shed 2.91 points or 0.16% to 1,773.31.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted increased 5.06 points or 0.05% to 10,326.39, Shanghai Composite was up by 14.45 points or 0.44% to 3,283.17 and Hang Seng added 112.04 points or 0.41% to 27,159.61.