Indian equities remain in red terrain

Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in red territory in early afternoon session, ahead of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) two-day policy meeting outcome. Sentiments remained under pressure with global rating agency, Fitch Ratings’ latest report which lowered the India's GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal to 6.7 per cent from the earlier projected 6.9 per cent, saying the rebound was weaker than expected. Some pessimism also come with report that the Nikkei India Services Purchasing Managers' Index dipped into negative territory in November, in the first contraction in three months, as the country continued to reel from the effects of the new goods and service tax- GST. Further, subdued trend in Asian markets and selling witnessed in Power, Utilities and Metal stocks, too weighed on the sentiments. In scrip specific development, Balaji Amines was up by over three percent on receiving ‘Mega Project’ status for project expansion.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as investors' rotation out of technology shares took the toll on some of the region's tech heavyweights although hopes of a major tax cut in the United States underpinned risk sentiment. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32750.42, down by 119.30 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 32682.52 and 32830.91. There were 7 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.17%, while Small cap index was down by 0.50%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 0.71%, Realty up by 0.34%, Oil & Gas up by 0.15% and Telecom up by 0.15%, while Power down by 1.28%, Utilities down by 1.11%, Metal down by 1.06%, Consumer Durables down by 0.96% and Capital Goods down by 0.87% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Industries up by 1.50%, Sun Pharma up by 0.56%, TCS up by 0.40%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.31% and ICICI Bank up by 0.26%. On the flip side, Power Grid down by 2.59%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.81%, ONGC down by 1.74%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.59% and Tata Steel down by 1.58% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, domestic credit rating agency, ICRA in its latest report has forecasted that India’s cement demand is likely to register a modest growth of 1% in the financial year 2017-18, on the back of pick up in the housing segment both affordable and rural housing and; infrastructure segment, mostly road and irrigation projects.

According to the report, the cement offtake has continued to remain weak in the first half of the financial year (H1 FY18) and also in the month of October, owing to factors such as weak real estate activity, sand shortage and Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation issues. ICRA also said that new project announcements from the private sector continue to remain weak and revival of public-private partnership is crucial to improve the pace of infrastructure development.

During seven months of FY18, the cement production reported de-growth of 1.6% to 165.6 million MT as compared to 168.3 million MT during 7M FY17. Besides, production declined by 3.3% in Q1 FY18 and by 0.4% in Q2 FY18 on a Y-o-Y basis. Demand during Q1 FY18 was adversely impacted due to various local issues across regions - in the North (especially in the states of UP and Punjab) the off-take was impacted by sand shortage and labour unavailability, while in the West the implementation of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) Bill resulted in construction activity slowing down.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10095.45, down by 32.30 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 10069.10 and 10119.20. There were 13 stocks advancing against 37 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Reliance Industries up by 1.53%, BPCL up by 1.06%, Indusind Bank up by 0.86%, Sun Pharma up by 0.53% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.52%. On the flip side, Eicher Motors down by 2.57%, Power Grid down by 2.27%, ONGC down by 1.93%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.90% and Hero MotoCorp down by 1.82% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 161.06 points or 0.55% to 28,977.22, Nikkei 225 dipped 84.78 points or 0.37% to 22,622.38, Taiwan Weighted was down by 84.26 points or 0.79% to 10,566.85, Jakarta Composite declined 13.05 points or 0.22% to 5,985.15, Shanghai Composite shed 5.01 points or 0.15% to 3,304.61 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 0.74 points or 0.04% to 1,712.39.

On the flip side, KOSPI Index was up by 8.45 points or 0.34% to 2,510.12.