Sensex, Nifty continue to trade in negative territory

The local equity benchmarks continued their trade in negative territory in late afternoon session, on the back of weak opening in European markets. Both Sensex and Nifty were trading below their crucial 33,100 and 10,200 levels, respectively, amid continuous selling in PSU, Power and Telecom stocks. Sentiments were pessimistic with a private report that private equity and venture capital investments in February registered a sharp 60% month-on-month decline to $1.4 billion across 63 deals, due to the absence of any mega deals. As per the report, no major deals above the value of $300 million happened last month, causing the decline from January, which registered deals worth $3.5 billion. Besides, major industry losers such as Adani Ports & SEZ, SBI and ICICI Bank, were contributing to the downtrend. Traders took note of another private report stating that India’s state-run banks - already bruised by the sprawling Punjab National Bank fraud case and soaring provisions for bad loans - are facing much higher losses on their bond holdings. The report warned that state-run banks, which are typically the largest investors in sovereign securities, could lose more than Rs 200 billion ($3.1 billion) in the January-March quarter, due to a continued spike in bond yields and as they held more bonds than are required by the regulator.

On the global front, European markets were trading in red, after White House economic adviser Gary Cohn announced his resignation over more aggressive trade policies, raising fears that US President Donald Trump may risk a trade war. Asian markets were also trading in red. Back home, in scrip specific development, Bal Pharma was trading in green on entering into collaboration with Akaal Pharma, Melbourne, Australia whereby both companies have launched a Joint Venture Company (JVC) - AB VET Pharma.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33082.56, down by 234.64 points or 0.70% after trading in a range of 33056.64 and 33331.21. 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 0.93%, while Small cap index was down by 1.77%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 0.75%, FMCG up by 0.31% and IT up by 0.13%, while PSU down by 1.60%, Power down by 1.55%, Telecom down by 1.44%, Capital Goods down by 1.44% and Energy down by 1.39% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 1.23%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.04%, HDFC up by 0.87%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.65% and Wipro up by 0.61%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 3.54%, SBI down by 3.41%, ICICI Bank down by 2.80%, ONGC down by 2.73% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.96% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to make an effective standards regulatory regime in India, the Commerce Ministry has started an exercise to formulate a national strategy for standardisation of products and services, circulating a draft of the strategy to seek stakeholders’ views till end of March 2018.

In a view of rapid growth of the economy, its size and emerging relevance in global trade, the ministry has expressed need to establish a robust quality infrastructure in India with a harmonised, dynamic, and mature standards ecosystem for goods. It added that this would fuel economic growth and enhance the ‘Made in India’ label.

The ministry highlighted that standards have been widely recognized as catalysts for technical development, industrial growth, well-being of the society and more recently for convergence of new and emerging technologies, and countries are accordingly evolving strategies to synergize standardization work with technological, social and economic development at the national level as well as to influence global standardization efforts.

The draft strategy has various key objectives like positioning standards as a key driver of all economic activities relating to goods and services, providing level playing field to domestic industry and developing a comprehensive ecosystem in India for standards development taking into account the diversity of interests and expertise available.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10172.90, down by 76.35 points or 0.74% after trading in a range of 10160.45 and 10243.35. There were 15 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech up by 1.59%, ITC up by 1.15%, Zee Entertainment up by 1.13%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.86% and Asian Paints up by 0.66%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 4.55%, SBI down by 3.64%, Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 3.39%, ICICI Bank down by 2.83% and Ambuja Cement down by 2.22% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 313.81 points or 1.03% to 30,196.92, Nikkei 225 decreased 165.04 points or 0.77% to 21,252.72, Jakarta Composite decreased 130.88 points or 2.01% to 6,369.23, Taiwan Weighted decreased 39.02 points or 0.36% to 10,745.32, Shanghai Composite decreased 17.97 points or 0.55% to 3,271.67, KOSPI Index decreased 9.59 points or 0.4% to 2,401.82 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 7.21 points or 0.39% to 1,841.16.

All European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 70.42 points or 0.58% to 12,043.45, France’s CAC decreased 21.61 points or 0.42% to 5,148.62 and UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 15.09 points or 0.21% to 7,131.66.