Benchmarks trade lower in early deals after positive start

Indian equity benchmarks made positive start on Friday tracking overnight gains on Wall Street. But, soon markets wiped out all the gains and are trading lower in early deals due to selling in Capital Goods, Industrials and Power stocks. Initially, some support came as Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the Union Cabinet has approved Rs 6,322-crore production linked incentive scheme for specialty steel, a move aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and exports from the sector. Though, traders turned concerned as former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu said India's wholesale price-based inflation is at a 30-year high, leading to a very alarming situation for the country. Some cautiousness came as the US has said India remains a challenging place to do business, and urged it to foster an attractive and reliable investment climate by reducing barriers to investment and minimising the bureaucratic hurdles.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly lower ignoring the positive cues overnight from Wall Street, as lingering worries over rising spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus in several parts across the world rendered the mood cautious. The markets are supported mainly by crude oil prices as they continue to recover from the recent selling-off. The Japanese stock market is closed on Friday for public holiday.

Back home, telecom stocks, namely Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Tele were in limelight amid reports that the Supreme Court will pronounce its judgment on appeal for correction of errors in Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) calculation on July 23. In scrip specific development, Wipro rose as it launched FieldX, a cloud-based end-to-end digital service lifecycle automation solution built on ServiceNow’s Now Platform.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 52756.26, down by 80.95 points or 0.15% after trading in a range of 52653.77 and 53008.53. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.10%, while Small cap index was up by 0.17%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 0.65%, Basic Materials up by 0.62%, IT up by 0.54%, TECK up by 0.46%, Oil & Gas up by 0.21%, while Capital Goods down by 0.81%, Industrials down by 0.66%, Power down by 0.58%, Realty down by 0.42%, Bankex down by 0.39% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HCL Tech. up by 1.80%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.22%, Tata Steel up by 1.17%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.71% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.65%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.53%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.64%, HDFC down by 0.64%, Indusind Bank down by 0.62% and HDFC Bank down by 0.51% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Minister for Road Transport & Highway -- Nitin Gadkari said the Road Transport and Highways ministry has constructed 13,327 km of National Highways in 2020-21 (FY21), which works out to about 37 km per day. Gadkari said to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic effect, his ministry took initiatives under Atmanirbhar Bharat and provided several COVID-19 relief measures to contractors, concessionaires and consultants, including extension of time for 3-9 months.

He also noted that the cost of ongoing projects may increase due to site, local and project specific factors or other factors including price escalation during the project time cycle. He said out of total 1,39,032 km, about 37,058 km National Highways have 4/6 lane infrastructure.

He stated said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had approved the proposal for investment approval for Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana on October 24,2017 for an amount of Rs 5,35,000 crore. he said ‘once Bharatmala Pariyojana is implemented, it is envisaged that the National Highway network of length 70,000+ km (50 per cent of National Highway Network) will have a consistent 4-lane and above infrastructure.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 15787.95, down by 36.10 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 15768.40 and 15876.45. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Technologies up by 1.76%, SBI Life Insurance up by 1.62%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.17%, Tata Steel up by 0.95% and Tata Consumer Products up by 0.77%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.58%, Tata Motors down by 2.12%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.87%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 1.19% and UPL down by 0.85% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Straits Times fell 2.81 points or 0.09% to 3,156.45, Hang Seng slipped 310.95 points or 1.12% to 27,412.89, Taiwan Weighted lost 1.98 points or 0.01% to 17,570.35, Jakarta Composite declined 43.66 points or 0.71% to 6,093.89 and Shanghai Composite was down by 23.18 points or 0.65% to 3,551.55, while KOSPI added 2.49 points or 0.08% to 3,252.70.