Equity benchmarks continue to trade southward in early noon deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade southward in early noon deals. Selling in metal and realty counters mainly dampened sentiments, while traders were piling up positions in oil and gas and power space. Traders shrugged off report that India has moved up two places to rank 76th on a global energy transition index, which has ranked 115 economies on how well they are able to balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability. Traders failed to get any sense of relief with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report which showed that India’s foreign exchange reserves increased by $3.6 billion to $405.64 billion as on March 15. In the previous week, the reserves had increased by $258.8 million to $401.776 billion. Market participants also failed to get any solace with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the government has exceeded its disinvestment target for the current fiscal by Rs 5,000 crore, taking the total proceeds to Rs 85,000 crore. Global cues too remained somber with all the Asian markets were trading in red as sentiments remained downbeat after weak economic data from Europe and an inverted yield curve in the U.S. stoked fears of a recession. Back home, sentiments remained pessimistic ahead of the fiscal deficit and infrastructure output data for the month of February are slated for a release later in the week.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 37799.18, down by 365.43 points or 0.96% after trading in a range of 37779.44 and 38016.76. There were 4 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index shed 0.86%, while Small cap index was down by 0.90%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 0.40%, Power up by 0.25%, PSU up by 0.15% and Utilities was up by 0.09%, while Metal down by 1.76%, Realty down by 1.65%, Basic Materials down by 1.36%, Bankex down by 1.19% and FMCG was down by 1.10% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The few gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.23%, ONGC up by 0.62%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.50% and Coal India was up by 0.45%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 3.02%, Yes Bank down by 1.92%, Tata Motors down by 1.71%, ICICI Bank down by 1.69% and SBI was down by 1.61% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Retirement fund body, Employment Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in its latest ‘Net Payroll Data’ report has showed that employment generation in the India’s formal sector touched a 17-month high of 8.96 lakh in January 2019 as compared to 3.87 lakh in the same month a year ago. It added that a net of 2,75,609 jobs were created in September 2017. Besides, it showed that, between September 2017 to January 2019, around 76.48 lakh new subscribers were added to social security schemes of the EPFO. This indicates that these many jobs were created in the last 17 months.

However, the EPFO revised its payroll data for December 2018 downwards by 1.8 percent to 7.03 lakh against the earlier estimate of 7.16 lakh released last month. It also revised the cumulative job addition data for the September 2017-December 2018 period downwards 6.6 percent to 67.52 lakh, from the earlier forecast of 72.32 lakh. The sharpest revision was for March 2018 in the latest report which showed contraction or exit of 29,023 members from the EPFO subscriptions whereas last month's estimated addition of 5,498 members.

According to the report, the March 2018 figure was negative due to large number of exits reported in March, in view of it being the closing month of the financial year. During January 2019, the highest number of 2.44 lakh jobs were created in the 22-25 years age group, followed by 2.24 lakh in the 18-21 years age bracket.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11348.50, down by 108.40 points or 0.95% after trading in a range of 11341.15 and 11395.65. There were 11 stocks advancing against 39 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HPCL up by 1.81%, Indian Oil Corporation up by 1.78%, BPCL up by 1.12%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.08% and NTPC was up by 1.00%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 2.76%, Hindalco down by 2.49%, JSW Steel down by 2.38%, Bharti Infratel down by 2.15% and Yes Bank was down by 2.06% were the top losers.

All the Asian market were trading in red; Nikkei 225 tumbled 652.83 points or 3.02% to 20,974.51, Taiwan Weighted dropped 159.59 points or 1.5% to 10,479.48, Jakarta Composite shed 103.08 points or 1.58% to 6,422.19, KOSPI fell 39.35 points or 1.8% to 2,147.60, Shanghai Composite declined 31.34 points or 1.01% to 3,072.81, Straits Times trembled 41.61 points or 1.3% to 3,170.49 and Hang Seng was down by 518.59 points or 1.78% to 28,594.77.