Markets continue to languish into negative territory

The local barometer gauges continued to languish into negative territory in early afternoon deals as selling momentum in the equities persisted. Sentiments on the street remained on pessimistic mood with trade deficit widening to its highest in nearly three years in October, as export growth contracted for the first time after more than a year. The trade deficit widened to $14.02 billion last month from $8.98 billion in September. Merchandise exports for October fell 1.12 percent from a year earlier to $23.1 billion, dropping for the first time since August 2016. Moreover, disappointing quarterly earnings by some blue- chip companies and weak global cues, too weighed on the sentiments. Investors paid no heed towards the private report stating that the decision to lower GST rates on over 200 items could help pull down retail inflation by 20 basis points from the current levels driven by lower food and beverage prices. In the currency front, the rupee edged up 7 paise to 65.35 against the dollar in early trade on fresh selling of the US currency by exporters. In scrip specific development, Camlin Fine Sciences rose on entering into preferred supply agreement with LMAES.

On the global front, Asian markets were mostly trading in red, with oil prices continued to tumble on the back of warnings of slowing demand and rising stockpiles. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32859.17, down by 82.70 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 32816.06 and 32944.94. There were 14 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.07%, while Small cap index was down by 0.13%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 0.38%, Industrials up by 0.29%, Consumer Disc up by 0.27%, Auto up by 0.24% and Energy up by 0.12%, while Metal down by 2.09%, Basic Materials down by 1.33%, FMCG down by 1.15%, Consumer Durables down by 0.80% and Utilities down by 0.63% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors - DVR up by 1.24%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.14%, Asian Paints up by 0.97%, TCS up by 0.95% and Larsen & Toubro up by 0.89%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.86%, Sun Pharma down by 2.78%, ITC down by 1.83%, Coal India down by 1.68% and Tata Steel down by 1.50% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has said that it was not only confident that the Income Tax (IT) department would achieve Rs 9.80 lakh crore target of direct tax revenue collections for the financial year 2017-18, but that it would surpass it. CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra has said that the net direct tax collections, which are made up of personal and corporate taxes, have been buoyant and very good.

Chandra said ‘I am very happy to say that the net growth of collections is about 15.2 percent at the moment and I would say that the individual assessees under the advance tax category have responded very well’. He further stated that there was a 30 percent increase in the advance tax of the individual assesses, which is quite optimistic for the department. He also noted that the department had seen an overall rise of 20 percent in returns filed post demonetisation and hence, the tax will be much more.

The policy-making body of the I-T department, CBDT had showed that net direct tax collections have reached 44.8% of the total budget estimates for the current fiscal year 2017-18 (FY18) - which is set at Rs 9.8 lakh crore. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10152.95, down by 33.65 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 10141.40 and 10175.45. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 2.85%, HPCL up by 2.50%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.58%, Indian Oil Corporation up by 1.43% and Tech Mahindra up by 1.40%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.99%, Hindalco down by 2.87%, Sun Pharma down by 2.84%, Vedanta down by 2.78% and Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 2.38% were the top losers.

Asian markets were mostly trading in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 351.69 points or 1.57% to 22,028.32, Hang Seng shed 215.2 points or 0.74% to 28,936.92, Taiwan Weighted was down by 56.53 points or 0.53% to 10,630.65, Shanghai Composite dipped 24.99 points or 0.73% to 3,404.56, KOSPI Index dropped 8.39 points or 0.33% to 2,518.25 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 2.78 points or 0.16% to 1,730.83.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 8.41 points or 0.14% to 5,996.70.