Indian bourses continue to trade with marginal losses

Indian equity benchmarks made a pessimistic start and are trading slightly in red in early noon session with Nifty and Sensex posting losses of just over 50 and 25 points respectively, following weak Asian markets. Some cautiousness spread with Reserve Bank India’s (RBI) report that investment by Indian companies in their overseas ventures fell by more than 36% to $1.39 billion in July this year as compared 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. Traders took note of a private report that the latest GDP growth numbers at 8.2% may be heartening, but it may be due to low base and can’t be sustained. Meanwhile, CII’s report stated that the 8.2 per cent economic growth in the first quarter of 2018-19 is an outcome of key reforms like GST and liberalisation of FDI norms initiated by the government.

On the global front, Asian market were trading in red, tracking their global peers lower while the safe-haven dollar was broadly higher on Wednesday as worries over persistent trade conflicts curbed investor appetite for riskier assets. On scrip specific development, Cyient rose with JV bagging order from Indian Army for SpyLite mini UAV systems for high altitude aerial surveillance. Goldiam International gained on bagging export orders worth Rs 140 crore.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38106.62, down by 51.30 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 38066.35 and 38250.61. There were 10 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mix; the BSE Mid cap index rose by 0.56%, while Small cap index down by 0.55%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.84%, IT up by 0.44% and TECK up by 0.23%, while Realty down by 1.74%, Telecom down by 1.17%, Consumer Durables down by 1.08%, Capital Goods down by 0.91% and Metal down was by 0.69% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.81%, Yes Bank up by 1.41%, ITC up by 1.16%, Wipro up by 0.96% and Infosys was up by 0.79%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 2.66%, ONGC down by 1.86%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.72%, Indusind Bank down by 1.31% and Tata Motors - DVR was down by 1.12% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s (NCAER) business confidence index (N-BCI) dropped by 12.9 percent in July 2018 over April 2018 on a quarter-on-quarter basis, due to worsening of business sentiments across various segments. It also said that the fall in the N-BCI on a year-on-year basis works out to be 15.9 percent. It noted that though the worsening of business sentiments is broad-based across the various components, the magnitude of the decline varied across sectors.

NCAER's 105th Round of the Business Expectations Survey (BES) has stated that the consumer goods sectors (including both durables and non-durables) showed modest drops as against to the other sectors. It also said that the BCIs of the capital goods and services sectors declined by as much as 18 percent and 15.8 percent, respectively. Further, it said a significant deterioration across three of the regions was seen in BCI, with the North showing the maximum decline of as much as 23.6 percent.

It also stated that the magnitude of decline was also quite significant in the East and West. It indicated that the southern region held on to the April 2018 level and also continued to have the highest BCI among all regions. It pointed out that except the group comprising the smallest firms or those with turnovers of less than Rs 1 crore, which almost held on to the previous BCI, all the other groups of firms across different firm sizes showed a significant decline in business sentiments between April and July 2018.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11494.70, down by 25.60 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 11486.40 and 11542.65. There were 18 stocks advancing against 32 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tech Mahindra up by 1.73%, Sun Pharma up by 1.50%, Yes Bank up by 1.47%, UPL up by 1.27% and ITC was up by 1.10%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 2.54%, Indiabulls Housing down by 2.16%, ONGC down by 1.92%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.87% and Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.71% were the top losers.

All Asian markets are trading in red, Straits Times fell 25.78 points or 0.81% to 3,184.73, Jakarta Composite declined 196.42 points or 3.44% to 5,708.88, Taiwan Weighted tumbled 26.25 points or 0.24% to 10,995.13, Hang Seng shed 557.31 points or 2.03% to 27,416.03, Shanghai Composite lost 21.15 points or 0.77% to 2,729.43, KOSPI dropped 18.89 points or 0.82% to 2,296.83 and Nikkei 225 was down by 90.04 points or 0.4% to 22,606.86.