Indian bourses continue to trade in negative terrain

Indian bourses continued to trade in negative territory in afternoon session, as investors remained cautious ahead of quarterly results of key bluechips. Traders failed to take any sense of relief from PwC-Ficci survey showing that India Inc expects over seven percent growth in the next 12 months on the back of a number of policy initiatives taken by the government. As per the report, the Indian economy is likely to grow at an average rate of 7% or more in the coming year. Traders took note of the World Bank’s CEO Kristalina Georgieva stating that developing economies like India, must get ready to cope with possible turbulence and to build fiscal and monetary space, to build policy buffers. Besides, weak Asian cues coupled with depreciation in Indian rupee against the dollar, too impacted the sentiments. On the sectoral front, select sugar stocks were trading lower with private report stating that India's sugar exports are likely to be far lower than a 5 million-tonne target set by New Delhi as a strengthening rupee and falling global prices make shipments unattractive despite a government push for overseas sales.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, following lower-than-expected Chinese inflation data while investors digested the conclusion of a three-day trade negotiation between the U.S. and China. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 36112.58, down by 100.33 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 36091.05 and 36269.31. There were 13 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.24%, while Small cap index was up by 0.21%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.63%, Auto up by 0.39%, Industrials up by 0.31%, Consumer Durables up by 0.31% and Power up by 0.29%, while Oil & Gas down by 1.07%, Bankex down by 0.86%, Telecom down by 0.56%, Energy down by 0.55% and PSU down by 0.38% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.95%, Tata Motors up by 1.45%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.88%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 0.83% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.70%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 2.16%, Axis Bank down by 1.69%, ICICI Bank down by 1.45%, ONGC down by 1.31% and Sun Pharma down by 1.01% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu has urged the Finance Ministry to make the process of refund of Goods and Services Tax (GST) input tax credit online to ensure that the export refund is seamless and also transparent and accountable. He also highlighted the declining trend of export credit in recent months and suggested that banks may be asked to encourage flow of credit to the export sector particularly to Micro- Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for generating more employment.

Besides, representatives of the export sector highlighted the problems of pre-import under advance authorisation and requested the Commerce Minister to bring the notification deleting the condition with retrospective effect. Suresh Prabhu asked DGFT and Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, to look into it so that genuine exporters are not harassed. Prabhu presided over a meeting of government officials and export organisations to discuss problems faced by the export sector. Banking issues, like caution listing of exporters, third party/ third country exports and list of items to be traded with Iran, were also discussed. The finance ministry officials would discuss the issues which were flagged in a meeting with banks on January 22.

As of November-end, total GST refunds to the tune of Rs 91,149 crore has been cleared by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and the state authorities out of the total refund claims of Rs 97,202 crore received so far. Thus, the disposal rate of 93.77 percent has been achieved. While Integrated GST (IGST) refund process is online, claiming of ITC refund still requires manual intervention.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10822.10, down by 33.05 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 10811.45 and 10859.35. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 1.48%, NTPC up by 1.40%, UPL up by 1.29%, Eicher Motors up by 1.03% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.85%. On the flip side, HPCL down by 2.87%, Indusind Bank down by 1.84%, Grasim Industries down by 1.65%, Axis Bank down by 1.55% and Bharti Infratel down by 1.48% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 263.26 points or 1.29% to 20,163.80, Hang Seng decreased 58.91 points or 0.22% to 26,403.41, KOSPI fell 1.43 points or 0.07% to 2,063.28, Taiwan Weighted dropped 17.62 points or 0.18% to 9,720.69 and Shanghai Composite declined 3.34 points or 0.13% to 2,541.00.

On the flip side, Straits Times advanced 18.34 points or 0.58% to 3,176.41 and Jakarta Composite soared 17.36 points or 0.28% to 6,289.60.