Indian bourses continue to languish into negative territory

Indian equity benchmarks continued to languish into negative territory in early afternoon session as selling momentum in the equities persisted amidst weakness in global peers. The mood on the street remained cautious with Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia’s statement that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compliance is still low. He added that a clear trend about revenue collections is likely to emerge only after three-four months, once integrated GST (IGST) is converted into Central GST and State GST, as GST revenue includes IGST revenue. Besides, a lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings led by the third-largest private sector bank Axis Bank, also kept investors nervous.  Further losses were restricted as some support came with statement of Surjit Bhalla, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council that the government is likely to stick to its fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent of GDP, and may accelerate sales of government stakes in lenders and other companies as part of an effort to recapitalise banks. In scrip specific development, LIC Housing Finance was trading in green after executing debt settlement agreement with DB Realty dated October 16, 2017.  

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, with investors trading cautiously as China's President Xi Jinping spoke at the beginning of the Communist Party's 19th National Congress, the most important political meeting of the party in the past five years. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32484.19, down by 124.97 points or 0.38% after trading in a range of 32462.85 and 32557.40. There were 11 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.18%, while Small cap index was down by 0.07%.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 1.31%, Power up by 0.70%, Utilities up by 0.61%, Oil & Gas up by 0.52% and Capital Goods up by 0.08%, while Telecom down by 1.94%, Bankex down by 1.79%, Auto down by 0.73%, TECK down by 0.70% and Consumer Disc down by 0.70% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid up by 3.10%, Reliance Industries up by 2.55%, Wipro up by 1.52%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.45% and ONGC up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 7.98%, ICICI Bank down by 3.80%, Cipla down by 2.77%, SBI down by 2.39% and Tata Motors - DVR down by 2.03% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan has said that the government is working on telecom projects worth Rs 1.3 lakh crore, which will considerably give a boost to digital connectivity in India. She also expressed hopes that many more such initiative will come in the next 2-3 years as the government itself is working on portfolio of Rs 1.30 lakh crore. She believed that with this initiative, telecom infrastructure will see very significant expansion, up-gradation and new era of services.

Telecom secretary further highlighted that the projects include enhancing telecom connectivity in about 8,600 villages of North-east region, undersea cable connectivity for Andaman and Nicobar Islands, revised communication project for Defence and increasing connectivity in rural area. She also indicated that telecom commission, the highest decision-making body of the telecom department, has recently approved several projects that include North-East mobile towers, Internet connectivity in 30,000 villages through satellite bandwidth and revised Network for Spectrum (NFS) project.

Sundararajan has noted that presently, around 80,000 village panchayats have started broadband services and by December 1 lakh panchayats will roll out services under the Bharat Net project. She also said the country has become cheaper both in terms of services and devices by a factor of 10 compared to rest of the world under the present regime.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10185.25, down by 49.20 points or 0.48% after trading in a range of 10175.75 and 10211.85. There were 14 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were Power Grid up by 3.07%, Reliance Industries up by 2.67%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.47%, Wipro up by 1.47% and ONGC up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 8.13%, ICICI Bank down by 3.78%, Yes Bank down by 3.72%, Zee Entertainment down by 3.40% and Bharti Infratel down by 3.03% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite decreased 25.6 points or 0.43% to 5,921.73, Hang Seng was down by 21.76 points or 0.08% to 28,675.73 and Taiwan Weighted shed 2.87 points or 0.03% to 10,720.28.

On the flip side; Shanghai Composite increased 2.82 points or 0.08% to 3,374.86, Nikkei 225 was up by 26.93 points or 0.13% to 21,363.05 and KOSPI Index surged 1.46 points or 0.06% to 2,482.91.