Indian equities continue weak trade; Nifty below 5,900 mark

Indian equities continued its weak trade in the late afternoon session due to lack of any upside triggers along with subdued European counterparts. The issue of FDI in retail came to haunt the government again in Parliament with a united Opposition demanding an inquiry and reply from PM Manmohan Singh on reports of Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entry into the Indian market. Traders were seen piling position in Realty, Health Care and Bankex sectors while selling was witnessed in Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas and TECk sectors. UP based sugar companies like Balrampur Chini, Bajaj Hindusthan and Shree Renuka Sugars were trading in red after the state raised the price at which sugar mills will buy the new season crop by up to 16% to Rs 290 per 100 kg. In the scrip specific development, Sesa Goa was trading under pressure after a panel appointed by Supreme Court recommended scrapping 42 iron ore mining leases in Goa until mining companies submit plans to deal with the environmental impact and the legal details involved. Cairn India was trading in red after the foreign research firm Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to neutral.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading on a mixed note while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. In Europe, a two-day European Union (EU) summit is scheduled in Brussels on December 13-14, 2012 to examine a detailed plan for completing a banking union and strengthening euro zone fiscal policy aimed at resolving euro zone fiscal crisis. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 5,900 and 19,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1384:1399 while 120 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,392.49, down by 31.61 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 19,478.01 and 19,362.32. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index indices were trading up by 0.38% and 0.19% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.46%, Health Care up 0.35%, Bankex up by 0.17%, FMCG was up 0.11% and PSU was up by 0.08%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.01%, Oil & Gas down by 0.85%, TECk down by 0.65%, IT down by 0.56% and Auto down by 0.35% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 2.39%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab was up by 1.33%, Cipla up by 1.08%, Tata Steel up by 1.00% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.88%.

On the flip side, TCS down by 2.06%, NTPC down by 1.59%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.40%, M&M down by 1.26% and RIL down by 1.13% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, confident of achieving the disinvestment target of Rs 30,000 crore for the current financial year, Union Revenue Secretary, Sumit Bose said, the government was positive enough to meet its disinvestment target for the year 2012-13, against previous year’s Rs 40,000 crore. The government has so far identified 10 companies where it plans to offload its stake.

The government recently raised some Rs 807.02 crore by divesting a 5.58 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper through an offer for sale (OFS). The government’s shareholding in the company before the OFS was at a high 99 per cent. Further, the government disinvested 10 percent of NBCC out of its shareholding and realized an amount of Rs 124.97 crore.

The government had set a target of mopping up close to Rs 30,000 crore through equity stake sales in companies including Oil India, SAIL, Hindustan Aeronautics, Nalco, RINL, BHEL, MMTC and NMDC. So far, the government has managed to garner only around Rs 14,000 crore as against the disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore in 2011-12.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,895.25, down by 12.15 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 5,919.95 and 5,888.10. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 2.51%, HDFC up by 2.30%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 2.16%, PNB up by 1.85% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 1.31%.

On the flip side, IDFC down by 2.91%, TCS down by 1.90%, Grasim Industries down by 1.76%, Cairn India down by 1.74% and BPCL down by 1.59% were the top losers on the Nifty.

Asian markets were showing mixed trend; Shanghai Composite was up by 1.07%, Hang Seng gained 0.39%, KLSE Composite was up by 0.89%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.07% and Straits Times was up by 0.42%.

On the other hand, Seoul Composite was marginally down by 0.01%, Taiwan Weighted has lost 0.43% and Jakarta Composite was tad lower by 0.14%.

The European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.50%, Germany’s DAX descended 0.43% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.23%.