Benchmarks trade slightly in red on penultimate day of F&O expiry

Indian equity benchmarks, after making a positive start, have turned red and are trading with marginal losses in early deals, as traders opted to remain on sidelines on start of penultimate day of September F&O expiry. Sentiments also remained dampened on report that collections under goods and services tax declined to Rs 90,669 crore for August from a revised figure of Rs 94,063 crore for July. Of the tax collected, Rs 14,402 crore have come in as Central GST, Rs 21,067 crore as State GST and Rs 47,377 crore as Integrated GST, which is levied on inter-state movement of goods and imports and Rs 7,823 crore as compensation cess. Some cautiousness also crept with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) expecting the RBI to go for another round of rate cut in the latter part of 2017-18 in view of sluggish economic activities but does not see possibility of any major fiscal stimulus.

Global cues too remained somber with Asian markets exhibiting mixed trend in early deals, as the dollar retained modest gains after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen boosted expectations for an interest-rate rise in December. The US markets continued their lackluster trade in the last session and the major averages made a mixed closing.

Closer home, telecom stocks remained on buyers’ radar, as the government has set up a high-level 5G committee with a mandate to lay down a road map for rollout of the technology by 2020. The government is working on creating a corpus of Rs 500 crore to fund 5G activity, mainly on research and product development. Meanwhile, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company made a tepid listing and was trading flat on the bourses.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31582.66, down by 17.10 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 31557.50 and 31797.46. There were 13 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.09%, while Small cap index was up by 0.51%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.07%, Consumer Durables up by 0.80%, Oil & Gas up by 0.66%, Consumer Disc up by 0.56% and Utilities was up by 0.48%, while Healthcare down by 0.86%, Metal down by 0.62%, FMCG down by 0.21% and Capital Goods was down by 0.02% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 1.01%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.99%, Power Grid Corporation up by 0.88%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.72% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.48%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 2.11%, Adani Ports down by 1.42%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.40%, Coal India down by 0.83% and Tata Steel down by 0.82% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to lay down a roadmap for rollout of the 5G technology in India by 2020, the government has constituted a high-level committee namely ‘High Level Forum on 5G India 2020’. The committee will have on board three secretaries from the Department of Telecommunications, IT and Electronics and Science and Technologies Ministries. Besides, the government is also working on creating a corpus of Rs 500 crore to fund 5G activity, mainly on research and product development.

Communications Minister Manoj Sinha has said that they want to keep pace with the global technology adoption and India does not want to stay behind in 5G rollout, therefore they have constituted this committee. He also said that for India, 5G provides an opportunity for industry to reach out to global markets and consumers to gain with the economies of scale. Worldwide, countries have launched similar forums and thus India had joined the race in 5G technology and they are open to collaboration with them.

Sinha further said that the terms of reference for the forum are to evaluate, approve roadmaps and action plans for 5G in India by 2020. He also said that the primary goals of the forum are to achieve early deployment of 5G in India and a globally competitive product development and manufacturing ecosystem targeting 50 percent of the Indian market and 10 percent of global market over next five to seven years. He added that 5G will enhance gross domestic product (GDP), create employment and digitise the economy.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9864.70, down by 6.80 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 9852.55 and 9921.05. There were 23 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ambuja Cement up by 2.49%, Indian Oil Corporation up by 1.68%, ACC up by 1.51%, Bosch up by 1.42% and GAIL India up by 1.30%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 2.07%, Indiabulls Housing down by 1.73%, Adani Ports down by 1.57%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.46% and Coal India down by 1.00% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite rose 1.1 points or 0.03% to 3,344.68, KOSPI Index increased 1.17 points or 0.05% to 2,375.49, Taiwan Weighted added 77.94 points or 0.76% to 10,334.96 and Hang Seng was up by 122.25 points or 0.44% to 27,635.26.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 72.27 points or 0.36% to 20,257.92, Jakarta Composite shed 2.31 points or 0.04% to 5,861.66 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 1.96 points or 0.11% to 1,763.63.