Bourses continue sluggish trade as RBI maintains status quo

The local equity benchmarks continued their sluggish trade in late afternoon session, as the RBI left key policy repo rate unchanged at 6%. Likewise, it has left the reverse repo rate at 5.75%, while the cash reserve ratio too has been left unchanged at 4%. Besides, weak opening in European markets along with continuous selling at Metal, Basic Materials and Telecom counters, too weighed on the sentiments. The traders were also worried with the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s (NCAER) latest report stating that India Inc’s confidence dived due to goods and services tax (GST) trouble in the second quarter (July-September) of the current financial year. Its Business Confidence Index (BCI) fell 12.9% from the earlier quarter.  Separately, India's total public debt (excluding liabilities under the public account) increased to Rs 65.65 lakh crore in the July-September quarter (Q2FY18), up by 2.53% over the previous quarter. Traders failed to get relief with NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar’s statement that India can take over the baton of higher growth from China for the next three decades if ties between the two Asian giants remain buoyant and the Indian economic trajectory follows the Chinese one.

On the global front, European markets were trading in red, amid ongoing concerns over Brexit negotiations and fresh political worries in the US. Asian markets were also trading in red. Back home, in the scrip specific development, Ducon Infratechnologies traded jubilantly after the company set up a wholly owned subsidiary (WOS) company by named Ducon Combustion Equipment Inc. (DCE) in New York, USA to sell diversified combustion and power products.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32704.61, down by 97.83 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 32584.66 and 32804.75. 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 0.44%, while Small cap index was down by 0.22%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 0.43%, IT up by 0.15% and FMCG up by 0.03%, while Metal down by 1.87%, Basic Materials down by 1.14%, Telecom down by 1.11%, PSU down by 0.61% and Healthcare down by 0.56% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.34%, Reliance Industries up by 0.93%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.63%, Coal India up by 0.45% and Infosys up by 0.38%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma Industries down by 1.94%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.81%, Tata Steel down by 1.77%, HDFC down by 1.70% and SBI down by 1.57% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India's economy though showed signs of recovery in Q2FY18 but overall business sentiment in the country during the same period got hit by the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. As per the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s (NCAER) latest survey, its Business Confidence Index (BCI) fell 12.9 % from the earlier quarter and 11.1% on year-on-year basis, due to GST.

The survey said that significant downturn in sentiment during the September quarter showed nervousness of corporate leaders around this new landmark change. It further pointed to the decline in Political Confidence Index (PCI) too. Its PCI index fell 12.4% on quarter on quarter basis. As per the report, Business Confidence Indices of the consumer durables and intermediate goods sectors witnessed 20.5% and 14.1%, drops respectively, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, while the confidence in consumer non-durables and capital goods sectors declined by 9.9% and 9.2%, respectively, on a quarter-on- quarter basis.

The survey result also pointed that the decline in BCI was driven by deterioration in sentiment in all the four components and that are-- overall economic conditions, financial position of firms, present investment climate and present capacity utilization and added that overall sentiment regarding production, domestic sales, export, imports of raw materials and pre-tax profit remained subdued in October versus July.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10076.90, down by 41.35 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 10039.55 and 10104.20. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.62%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.40%, Reliance Industries up by 1.07%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.05% and HCL Tech. up by 0.93%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 3.08%, Bosch down by 2.92%, Vedanta down by 2.58%, Eicher Motors down by 2.02% and Bajaj Finance down by 1.72% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 618 points or 2.14% to 28,224.80, Nikkei 225 decreased 445.34 points or 1.97% to 22,177.04, Taiwan Weighted decreased 172.93 points or 1.64% to 10,393.92, KOSPI Index decreased 35.75 points or 1.42% to 2,474.37, Shanghai Composite decreased 9.71 points or 0.29% to 3,293.97 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 6.51 points or 0.38% to 1,718.33. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite increased 38.65 points or 0.64% to 6,039.12.

All European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 130.95 points or 1% to 12,917.59, France’s CAC decreased 38.76 points or 0.72% to 5,336.77 and UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 24.04 points or 0.33% to 7,303.46.