Local equities trim losses to trade flat

Local equity benchmarks trimmed some of their losses in morning session, but continue to trade below the neutral lines. However, mid-caps seen a smart recovery of around one fourth a percent, while Small cap index trading at 0.38%. Traders started taking support from Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu’s statement that with phenomenal changes in social and economic sector reforms, India will become a five-trillion-dollar economy in seven years from the present 2.6 trillion dollars. Some encouragement came with a report that India and the US on September 6, pledged to expand their bilateral trade and economic partnership with a view to promoting investment and job creation. The two nations also agreed to work collectively with other partner countries in the Indo-Pacific region to support transparent, responsible and sustainable debt financing practices in infrastructure development. Investors took note of a private report that India has identified aircraft, oil and gas, and services related to aircraft as areas where the US can increase its exports to India while food, pharma and marine products are among the segments where the country can target abigger pie of the US market.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as investors remained on the sidelines with a report that Trump administration may be about to slap tariffs of up to 25% on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods, escalating a confrontation between the world’s two biggest economies. Back home, in scrip specific development, Ajmera Realty traded higher on acquiring 85% stake in Anirdesh Developers LLP. Besides, L&T Technology Services was trading in green on inking agreement to acquire 100% stake in Graphene.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38210.31, down by 32.50 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 38067.22 and 38331.19. There were 17 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.74%, while Small cap index was up by 0.38%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 0.97%, Consumer Durables up by 0.80%, Consumer Disc up by 0.68%, Metal up by 0.67% and Industrials was up by 0.61%, while Bankex down by 0.42%, Power down by 0.27%, IT down by 0.10%, PSU down by 0.10%, Utilities was down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto up by 3.65%, Tata Motors up by 2.43%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 2.32%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.22% and Wipro was up by 1.59%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 3.90%, Yes Bank down by 2.06%, Power Grid down by 1.61%, SBI down by 1.11% and HDFC was down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, stressing on the Government’s focus towards urban mobility, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said that India needs to cut down on oil imports and switch the transport system from internal combustion to electric as 14 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in this country. He stated India needs to convert these two-and-three-wheelers into electric vehicles, ensure cleaner fuel for public transport and push sharing-based transport system in place of private cars.

Kant stated India is slightly different from the rest of the world because around 76 percent of the vehicles are two-wheelers which consume 60 percent of fuel. They emit 30 percent of total pollution. He further added that of the remaining share, 3 percent is three-wheelers, 7-8 percent is public transport and rest is four-wheelers, which constitute the most pollution.

Besides, he underlined that the transition towards urban mobility will be done through Centre’s ‘Make in India’ initiative to set up manufacturing units in India. He highlighted ‘Unlike America and Europe which have 950 cars and 880 cars per 1000 people respectively, India has only 20 (cars) per 1000... So, there is huge difference in level which we can easily transfer to electric.’ He further added that ‘We need to ensure that Make in India takes place with motors, compressors, batteries, etc being manufactured in India.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11530.45, down by 6.45 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 11484.40 and 11558.25. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Auto up by 3.52%, Tata Motors up by 2.19%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.12%, Bharti Infratel up by 1.88% and UPL was up by 1.35%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 4.23%, Yes Bank down by 2.00%, HCL Technologies down by 1.98%, Power Grid down by 1.78% and HDFC was down by 1.13% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 196.72 points or 0.88% to 22,291.22, Hang Seng dropped 220.42 points or 0.82% to 26,754.40, KOSPI declined 16.37 points or 0.72% to 2,271.24, Taiwan Weighted fell 114.59 points or 1.06% to 10,809.71, Straits Times tumbled 23.62 points or 0.76% to 3,124.07 and Shanghai Composite was down by 3.46 points or 0.13% to 2,688.13. On the other side, Jakarta Composite was up by 20.22 points or 0.35% to 5,796.32.