Markets remain in red zone lacking any upside trigger

Indian markets are not showing much sign of moving up with trade continuing range bound for the benchmarks, there were some early attempts to enter the green but now lacking any support, the indices have flattened out. After the disappointment from US Fed, now globally all eyes are on the outcome from European Central Bank's meet and the Indian traders too are waiting to get some cue from the European Central Bank’s decision. On the domestic front the weakness in rupee was weighing down the sentiments. On the sectoral front, while the capital goods and consumer durables along with FMCG counter was trying to provide some relief on the other hand rate sensitive’s like auto and banking were exerting pressure on the lower side. Largest lender SBI was trading lower by around one and half a percent unable to entice any fervor despite its decision to cut car and home loan rates. SBI has said that it will bring down interest rates on car loans to 10.75% from the prevailing 11.25%, while decided to offer home loans of up to Rs 30 lakh at 10.25% down from 10.5%, and loans between Rs 30 lakh to Rs 75 lakh at 10.4%.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,177.26 down by 80.12 points or 0.46% after touching a high and low of 17,246.01 and 17,161.93 respectively. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The broader indices were however outperforming the benchmarks, trading on a positive note; the BSE Mid cap index was up 0.02%, while Small cap index gained 0.24%.

The top gainers on the BSE sectoral space were, CG up 0.27%, CD up by 0.25%, FMCG up by 0.23%, HC up by 0.13% and Power up by 0.12%, while Auto down by 0.87%, Bankex down by 0.82%, Oil & Gas down by 0.78%, Metal down by 0.63% and PSU down by 0.50% were top losers on the BSE sectoral space.

NTPC up by 1.72%, Jindal Steel up by 0.99%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.82%, Dr Reddy’s up by 0.51% and TCS up by 0.36% were major gainers on the Sensex, while Tata Motors down by 2%, Sterlite Inds down by 1.98%, Tata Power down by 1.76%, HDFC Bank down by 1.58% and SBI down by 1.42% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, amidst intensifying competition and newcomers starting operations, the subscriber addition has only accelerated. The number of telephone subscriber in the country grew from 926.53 million at the end of December 2011 to 951.34 million as at the end of March 12, registering a growth of 2.68% over the previous quarter as against 2.16% during the quarter ended December-11. These figures also reflect year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth of 12.41% over the same quarter of last year. The overall tele-density in India has reached 78.66 as of March 31, 2012.

Further, in Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released report on ‘Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators (January-March, 2012),’ Gross revenue and adjusted gross revenue of telecom service sector for the quarter has been Rs 49,242.99 crore and Rs 34,457.07 crore respectively. Meanwhile monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) for GSM service increased by 1.66% to reach Rs 97 at the end of March 2012 from Rs 96 at the end of December 2011.

With 25.33 million net additions during the quarter, total wireless (GSM + CDMA) subscriber base registered a growth of 2.83% over the previous quarter and increased from 893.84 million to 919.17 million at the end of March 2012. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth rate of Wireless subscribers for Mar-12 is 13.26%. Unlike the wireless segment, the wire-line segment’s subscriber base witnessed a decline from 32.69 million in December 2011 to 32.17 million at the end of March 2012, showing a shift from wire-line to the wireless. Subscription in urban areas grew from 611.19 million at the end of December 2011 to 620.52 million at the end of March 2012, taking urban tele-density from 167.85 to 169.55. Meanwhile, rural subscription increased from 315.33 million to 330.82 million, and rural tele-density increased from 37.48 to 39.22.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,211.55, down by 28.95 points or 0.55% after touching a high and low of 5,236.90 and 5,210.60 respectively. There were 13 stocks advancing against 36 declines, while one stock remained unchanged on the index.

The major gainers on the Nifty were NTPC up by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.84%, Jindal Steel up by 0.81%, Ranbaxy up by 0.80% and Asian Paint up by 0.55%. While, Sterlite Inds down by 2.40%, Tata Motors down by 2.35%, Tata Power down by 1.90%, Cairn India down by 1.65% and SBI down by 1.64% were the major losers on the index.

Asian indices were trading mostly in red; Shanghai Composite was down by 0.71%, Hang Seng was down by 0.79%, Jakarta Composite down by 0.44%, Straits Times down by 0.50%, KLSE Composite lost 0.07% and Kospi Composite Index was down by 0.56%.

On the other hand Nikkei 225 was trading up by 0.13%.