Local equities continue to show sluggish trend

Mirroring weak global cues, local equity benchmarks continued to show sluggish trend in morning session. Coal India, ONGC and Hindustan Unilever were the prime losers among heavy-weights, pushing the Sensex 0.13% lower. Sentiments remained pessimistic with SBI’s report that the rupee may fall further against the US dollar, prompting the Reserve Bank to adopt ‘orthodox’ monetary policy like hike in interest rate to check depreciation of the domestic currency. Traders remained on the sideline with Reserve Bank India’s report that investment by Indian companies in their overseas ventures fell by more than 36% to $1.39 billion in July this year India companies had invested $2.17 billion in their overseas subsidiaries and joint ventures in the form of loan, equity and issuance of guarantee in July 2017. Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the long-drawn negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement will continue into 2019 to sort out issues related to goods and services trade among member nations.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, following the negative cues from Wall Street and also traders remained concerned over the potential escalation of trade tensions between the US and China, and the stability of emerging market currencies. Back home, in scrip specific development, Strides Pharma gained with arm getting USFDA nod for Potassium Chloride Extended Release Tablets. Beside, Muthoot Finance traded in green on raising funds up to Rs 5000 crore via NCDs.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38109.71, down by 48.21 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 38080.42 and 38250.61. There were 11 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index slipped 0.57%, while Small cap index was down by 0.46%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.58%, IT up by 0.46% and TECK up by 0.28%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.24%, Realty down by 1.07%, Telecom down by 0.82%, Metal down by 0.78%, Capital Goods down by 0.67% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.81%, Yes Bank up by 1.14%, Wipro up by 1.10%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.99% and Infosys was up by 0.73%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 2.09%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.52%, ONGC down by 1.18%, Tata Motors - DVR down by 1.05% and Vedanta was down by 0.94% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest data has showed that investment by Indian companies in their overseas ventures dropped by around 36 per cent to $1.39 billion in July 2018 in comparison to companies had invested $2.17 billion in their overseas subsidiaries and joint ventures in the form of loan, equity and issuance of guarantee in July 2017.

Of the $1.39 billion invested in July, $608.52 million was the equity capital, $406.74 million was through loan and $371.86 million came in the form of issuance of guarantees. In the month of June 2018, domestic firms invested in $2.07 billion in their ventures located out of India.

In July 2018, among major investors, Serum Institute of India invested $187.39 million in its wholly-owned subsidiary in the Netherlands. Sterlite Technologies invested $66.67 million in Italy, Interglobe Enterprises $54.65 million in the UK and JSW Steel $50.47 million in the US.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11493.20, down by 27.10 points or 0.24% after trading in a range of 11489.45 and 11542.65. There were 18 stocks advancing against 32 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 1.53%, Yes Bank up by 1.11%, Wipro up by 1.05%, UPL up by 0.92% and GAIL India was up by 0.88%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 2.04%, Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 1.90%, Titan Co down by 1.67%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.64% and Bharti Infratel was down by 1.36% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red, Straits Times slipped 26.07 points or 0.82% to 3,184.44, Shanghai Composite dropped 25.32 points or 0.93% to 2,725.26, Jakarta Composite declined 196.42 points or 3.44% to 5,708.88, Nikkei 225 decreased 45.67 points or 0.2% to 22,651.23, Hang Seng fell 486.87 points or 1.77% to 27,486.47 and KOSPI was down by 6.12 points or 0.26% to 2,309.60. On the other side, Taiwan Weighted was up by 4.74 points or 0.04% to 11,026.12.