Weak trade persist on D-Street; Energy, Oil & Gas stocks fall

Key Indian equity benchmarks continued their weak trade in late morning session, with Sensex falling over 100 points on heavy selling in Energy, Oil & Gas and Consumer Durables stocks. Traders were cautious with the private report stating that a year after the Indian government scrapped high denomination currency notes, a wide range of indicators suggest the economy is still coming to terms with the move. It also noted that cash-dependent service sectors, like transportation, logistics, real estate and retail took a greater hit than the larger/listed entities. Along with larger peers, the broader indices too showed lackluster performance by trading down by over 0.50% each, while there were only two sectors – IT and TECK with positive bias. On the sectoral front, logistic companies stocks were lower despite ICRA’s latest report that the country’s logistics industry is likely to grow at a rate of 9-10 percent annually.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, tracking records on Wall Street as investors appeared to shrug off nervousness over tensions on the Korean peninsula, with US President Donald Trump visiting Seoul. Back home, in scrip specific development, Reliance Communications was trading higher after the company entered into a binding Memorandum of Understanding with Veecon Media and Television, for sale of its subsidiary Reliance BIG TV (RBTV), engaged in the business of Direct to Home (DTH) services across India.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33625.03, down by 106.16 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 33582.38 and 33865.95. There were 8 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.54%, while Small cap index was lower by 0.52%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.60% and TECK up by 1.92%, while Energy down by 2.09%, Oil & Gas down by 1.51%, Consumer Durables down by 1.06%, PSU down by 1.00% and Realty down by 0.90% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 3.17%, TCS up by 2.74%, Wipro up by 2.69%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.92% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.45%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.72%, Asian Paints down by 1.68%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.54%, Power Grid Corporation down by 1.42% and ICICI Bank down by 1.39% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, engineering exporters’ apex body, the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) India, has reported that India's engineering exports has improved in September on back of impressive demand pick-up in most of the developed countries, including the United States (US) and Europe. It also noted that the US accounted for an annual growth of 91 percent in shipments in September 2017, together with a number of different key markets of Europe, the UAE and China.

EEPC India stated that the USA continued to be the number one exporting destination for India's engineering products, registering positive growth both on monthly as well as in cumulative basis during April-September 2017-18 over the same period last fiscal. It pointed out that while the shipments of engineering exports to the US went up by a whopping 91 percent to $1.53 billion in September, from $551 million in the same month last fiscal, the April-September exports had gone up over by 47 percent to $4.79 billion from $3.25 billion in the first half of the previous fiscal.

As per the apex body, overall, India's engineering exports to its top 25 destinations registered a rise in both monthly to the extent of 53.3 percent in September 2017 and cumulatively to the extent of 25.6 percent during April- September 2017, compared to the same period previous year. Further, it noted that they are seeing a secular trend in the global demand pick-up and once they are able to resolve their domestic issues arising out of the initial problems of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, they should be able to build up further.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10408.70, down by 43.10 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 10394.65 and 10485.75. There were 15 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech. up by 3.30%, Infosys up by 3.18%, Wipro up by 2.75%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.75% and TCS up by 2.61%. On the flip side, Indian Oil Corporation down by 3.43%, HPCL down by 2.96%, Reliance Industries down by 2.56%, Yes Bank down by 2.44% and BPCL down by 2.32% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 2.98 points or 0.17% to 1,745.27, Jakarta Composite was up by 6.99 points or 0.12% to 6,057.81, Shanghai Composite added 21.64 points or 0.64% to 3,409.81, Taiwan Weighted increased 54.15 points or 0.5% to 10,840.34, Nikkei 225 rose 356.15 points or 1.58% to 22,904.50 and Hang Seng increased 378.32 points or 1.32% to 28,975.12. On the flip side, KOSPI Index decreased 6.01 points or 0.24% to 2,543.40.