Indian equities remain in red terrain

Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in red territory in early afternoon session, as investors remained on sidelines ahead of trade deficit data, to be released later in the day. Sentiments also remained weak with Industry bodies stating that RBI's decision to ban Letters of Undertaking (LOUs) for trade credit for imports will have a disruptive impact, at least in the immediate term, as small businesses would require higher working capital. Besides, weak Asian cues coupled with depreciation in Indian rupee against the dollar, too impacted the sentiments. However, further down move got restricted, on the back of World Bank’s statement that India’s economy is expected to grow at 7.3% in the next financial year and accelerate to 7.5% in 2019-20, bottoming out from the impact of demonetisation and GST, even as it highlighted private investments and exports as the two lagging engines of growth. In scrip specific development, Havells India was up by over one and half percent on signing an agreement with Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems for manufacturing Magnetic Contactors.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as trade war fears return to the fore, with worries Donald Trump will go full-steam ahead with his 'America First' protectionist agenda. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33762.39, down by 73.35 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 33733.50 and 33866.28. There were 13 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.66%, while Small cap index was up by 0.74%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.56%, Realty up by 0.49%, Consumer Disc up by 0.34%, Consumer Durables up by 0.33% and Industrials up by 0.32%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.76%, Energy down by 0.66%, Metal down by 0.34%, Bankex down by 0.33% and PSU down by 0.22% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 0.97%, Wipro up by 0.80%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.66%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.65% and Sun Pharma up by 0.57%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 1.50%, NTPC down by 0.91%, Yes Bank down by 0.83%, Reliance Industries down by 0.79% and Tata Motors - DVR down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Minister of state for civil aviation, Jayant Sinha has said that his ministry is targeting a five-fold increase in passenger trips to 1 billion per annum in 15-20 years, in view of the huge growth opportunities the sector holds. Therefore, he said that the government is working towards setting up of new greenfield airports and skilling manpower to achieve this target. He also noted that the billion passenger trips would not come from aircraft alone but also from helicopters, sea planes and passenger drones. He added that many of these have still to be manufactured in the country and it provides tremendous business opportunities to start and develop these new technologies.

Elaborating on passenger drones, Sinha said that this is a big industry and in the coming years, it is likely to touch a trillion dollar mark. He said “We in India have the opportunity to be a leader in this. We are already working on drone regulations so we can set standards, develop different drone technologies.” He noted that like they have made air travel affordable to common people wearing 'hawai chappals, similarly they can go from auto rickshaws to air rickshaws, that is the opportunity.

The minister further said that safety and security is the number one concern and the ministry is working hard on this. He noted that they are working on a unified security architecture with CISF to ensure that all large or small airports have same level of high security. On the job front, the minister said that the industry currently employs about 2 lakh people directly and about 1.2 million people indirectly. He also said that this will quintuple, so they will have 6 million people working over the next few years. Besides, he indicated that revenues in the sector would increase significantly from Rs 2 lakh crore to Rs 8-10 trillion (Rs 8-10 lakh crore) in the next 15-20 years.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10387.30, down by 23.60 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 10376.95 and 10420.00. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Infratel up by 1.47%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.22%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 1.03%, Lupin up by 0.96% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.77%. On the flip side, Indian Oil Corporation down by 2.54%, ICICI Bank down by 1.40%, Zee Entertainment down by 1.16%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.97% and Reliance Industries down by 0.88% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Jakarta Composite decreased 34.4 points or 0.54% to 6,348.22, Taiwan Weighted was down by 20.35 points or 0.18% to 11,018.45, Shanghai Composite dipped 11.59 points or 0.35% to 3,279.79 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI shed 4.74 points or 0.26% to 1,852.32.
On the flip side, KOSPI Index increased 6.3 points or 0.25% to 2,492.38, Hang Seng was up by 14.75 points or 0.05% to 31,449.76 and Nikkei 225 rose 26.66 points or 0.12% to 21,803.95.