Post session - Quick review

Indian shares extended downward journey amid volatile trade, a feature which is peculiar in F&O expiry week, as continued logjam in Parliament entered its sixth day today, dissuaded investor’s from building up position. Much of the pressure in today’s trading session yet again came majorly from stocks belonging to companies, which were alleged to be involved in the list of coal scam disclosed by the Comptroller and Auditor General last week, namely, Jindal Steel, Sterlite Industries, Adani Enterprises, etc. However, the sentiment at Dalal Street also took a hit when the CAG pulled out state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for not placing desired emphasis on discovering oil and gas and being behind the schedule in monetizing its discoveries, thereby sending its stocks lower by over two percent.

Local equity markets, besides showcasing some fervor in the early deals, went on losing spree up-till late trade, when some recovery finally pushed the benchmark’s out of their lows.  However, support that came to the last hour of trade, was not strong enough to put the benchmark indices out of their blues, leading to another red close.

30 share barometer index of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Sensex, sliding over 0.25%, settled near its 17,600 level, which emerged as its strong support level for the session. Meanwhile, the widely followed National Stock Exchange (NSE), Nifty, too offloading close to 0.50%, settled above the 5300 crucial mark. Broader indices underwent nasty laceration, as both Midcap and Smallcap index, went home with deeper cuts of over a percentage points.

Bleak global cues also played their part in the downturn of equity markets. Asian shares put forth a disappointing show as investors turned cautious ahead of a gathering of central bankers and economists in Wyoming later in the week which could shed some light on further stimulus plans. Meanwhile, European equities too indicated glumness, on account of weak economic outlook and uncertainty over the European Central Bank's plans to contain the region's debt crisis, which ate into the risk appetite. Closer home, plunge of banking shares for the fourth consecutive session, also came as a bit of drag for the bourses. Continued worries about weakening economic growth at a time when parliament proceedings remained deadlocked, mainly weighing on the banking pivotal, along with other rate sensitive’s. Meanwhile, street is widely expecting India's economy to have grown 5.3 percent in the April-June quarter, unchanged from January-March quarter, during the release of GDP data on August 31, 2012.

Back on Dalal Street, Metal, Capital Goods and Bankex counters, mainly negated the sentiment of trade, while Information Technology, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, technology and Power counters, limited the downside of the bourses. Meanwhile, Tata Power stocks accumulated gains of over a percent after reports suggested that Attorney General of India, clearing the way for a hike in tariff of electricity from private producers has said that the central regulator should have the right to increase tariffs irrespective of the contracts signed by power producers with distribution companies. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 954:1864 while 117 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 66.03 points or 0.37% and settled at 17,612.78. The index touched a high and a low of 17,712.35 and 17,570.71 respectively. 13 stocks were seen advancing against 17 declining ones on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index lost 1.07% while Small-cap index was down 1.36%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, IT up 0.89%, FMCG up 0.80%, TECk up 0.53% and Power up 0.46% were the only gainers, while Metal down 2.70%, Capital Goods down 1.89%, Bankex down 1.14%, Auto down 0.91% and Power down 0.84% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up 2.30%, Tata Power up 1.55%, Sun Pharma up 1.54%, NTPC up 1.48% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab up 1.31% while, Sterlite Industries down 5.31%, Jindal Steel down 5.08%, Hindalco Industries down 3.13%, L&T down 2.76% and ONGC down 2.49% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has released an Information Memorandum (IM) on the auction of second-generation spectrum, with Delhi being the most expensive at a reserve price of Rs 693.06 crore per block of 1.25 MHz and Rs 900 crore for GSM and CDMA respectively. Delhi includes local areas served by Delhi, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Noida, and Gurgaon telephone exchanges.

Mumbai is not far behind either, as the reserve price for Mumbai is the second highest at Rs 678.45 crore (per 1.25 MHz) and Rs 900 crore for GSM and CDMA respectively. Mumbai means local areas served by Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Kalyan telephone exchanges.

As per IM, block size shall be 1.25MHz (Paired), while a minimum of 8 blocks each of 1.25MHz (10MHz) will be put to auction in all service areas. Although the existing operators will be permitted to take maximum two blocks of 1.25MHz each in every service area, new entrants will be required to bid for minimum of 4 blocks each of 1.25 MHz in each service area. Additionally, new entrants will also be allowed to bid for one additional block of 1.25MHz in each service area.

DoT is expected to issue a notice inviting applications on September 28, while the last date of submission of application, as detailed in IM, would be October 19. Meanwhile, the final list of bidders is expected to be released on November 6. This will be followed by a mock auction on November 7 and 8 and thereafter the e-auction of 1,800 MHz band will take place on November 12.

Further, DoT has also fixed the earnest money, a deposit a buyer makes to the seller to show its faith in a transaction, for pan-India bidding at Rs 442 crore for 2G spectrum in the 1,800 Mhz band across the country, while the base price pegged for acquiring pan-India spectrum was fixed at Rs 14,000 crore for 5 Mhz in the 1,800 Mhz band and 1.3 times higher for the 800 Mhz bandIndia VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 0.72% at 16.35 from its previous close of 16.47 on Monday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 21.80 points or 0.41% to settle at 5,328.45. The index touched high and low of 5,359.25 and 5,312.60 respectively. 19 stocks advanced against 31 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Power Grid up 3.42%, TCS up 2.28%, Asian Paints up 1.80%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up 1.67% and Sun Pharma was up 1.65%. On the other hand, Sterlite Industries down 5.53%, Jindal Steel down 5.31%, JP Associates down 3.50%, Hindalco Industries down 3.27% and Sesa Goa down 3.20% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 descending 0.51%, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.42% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 lost 0.11%.

Most Asian markets fell on Tuesday, on the back of global worries about the impact of the euro zone debt crisis. Meanwhile, investors awaited the release of key US economic data. After plummeting to their lowest level since March 2009 on Monday, Shanghai shares ended with green mark despite fading hopes for more formal monetary easing to underpin China's fragile growth. In Seoul, shares of Samsung Electronics rose 1.6%, recovering some of the value lost on Monday. Hong Kong shares also ended lower, ahead of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech in bankers' meet at Jackson Hole on Friday.