Markets slip into red: Nifty fell below 5,600 mark

Following a few rounds of buying in the early morning session, Indian equity markets currently moved marginally down in negative territory amid stock specific activity. The NSE Nifty fell below 5,600 mark, while BSE Sensex fell 12 points. Investors were trading cautiously with a slightly negative bias following the central bank once again deciding to hold the lending rate steady. Traders were not ready to make any strong positions with concerns about economic slowdown surfacing again and unimpressive corporate results. In currency markets rupee depreciated against dollar in the late morning session amid increasing month-end dollar demand from oil importers. On sectoral front health care, auto, consumer durables and IT stocks were trading in green, while stocks from capital goods, oil, power, realty and bank sectors were trading in red. In global markets, Asian shares were trading mixed as risk appetite recovered after European equities and the euro firmed overnight while US financial markets looked set to reopen following their storm-forced shutdown. Back home, the market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 1,110 shares on the gaining side against 1,184 shares on the losing side while 138 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,418.58 down by 12.27 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 18,485.20 and 18,409.20. There were 14 stocks advancing against 15 declines and one remains unchanged on the index.

The broader still holding some gains; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.16% and Small cap index was up by 0.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, HC up by 1.21%, Auto up by 0.99%, CD up by 0.50%, TECk up by 0.20% and IT up by 0.06%. While, CG down by 0.97%, Oil & Gas down by 0.59%, Power down by 0.53%, Realty down by 0.37% and Metal down by 0.31% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.54%, Dr Reddy up by 2.38%, Wipro up by 2.03%, Tata Motors up by 1.78% and Cipla up by 1.41%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 1.48%, Gail India was down by 1.47%, BHEL was down by 1.34%, L&T was down by 1.25% and ONGC down by 1.12% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with the increasing oil prices amid rising dependence on imported oil, the newly appointed Petroleum and Natural gas Minister, Veerappa Moily has confirmed that the ministry will emphasize on quick decision making and innovation and affirmed that his priority would be to intensify domestic oil and gas exploration.

He promised that his ministry’s decision would be taken by keeping the national interest in mind and would not be to benefit one or two individuals or companies. He pointed that he wants to create a conducive environment for domestic and foreign companies in oil and gas exploration so as to reduce India's import dependence, which is at an alarming level of 80% at present.

He noted the importance of triggering investor’s confidence to make the nation as an investment destination and affirmed to pare down the bottlenecks. He pointed that over $13 billion have been committed in the nine rounds of the new exploration licensing policy, which have resulted in nearly 254 exploration licenses.

He also noted that the average consumption of petroleum products in developed countries is 14 barrels per person per year and in developing nations, it is 3 barrels, while India has approximately 1.2 barrel per person per year. He affirmed that the target set to achieve would be to the level of six barrels per person per year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,590.30, down by 7.60 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 5,610.40 and 5,585.20. There were 20 stocks advancing against 28 declines on the index and two remain unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.80%, Dr Reddy up by 2.27%, Wipro up by 1.99%, Tata Motors up by 1.88% and Cipla up by 1.30%.

On the flip side, RInfra down by 2.90%, JP Associates down by 2.14%, GAIL down by 1.86%, BHEL down by 1.68% and Jindal Steel down by 1.67%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite lost 0.68%, KLSE Composite declined by 0.13%, Straits Times was down by 0.32 and Taiwan Weighted declined by 0.23%.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite was up 0.08%, Hang Seng was up by 0.51%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.95% and Kospi Composite was up by 0.73%.