Post session - Quick review

Indian markets struggled to come out of their consolidation mood on Monday and the trade remained choppy throughout the day, lacking any trigger to move markets in either direction. Though, the global cues were supportive as the US markets had ended mostly in green on Friday and Asian markets remained in jubilant mood with the start of the new week. Local markets that were expected to regain momentum after last week’s sluggishness, showed complete buying apathy in day’s trade. The sense of indecisiveness prevailed in the markets despite the government expectedly winning a vote for foreign direct investment in multi-brand retailing in the Parliament in last week.

On the global front, the US markets had closed mostly higher on getting upbeat jobs report and taking the positive cues the Asian markets too started in green and propelled with some good economic report from China, where industrial production as well as retail sales showed sign of improvement in the world’s second largest economy. However, the mood of the domestic markets got dampened with the weak start of the European markets on concern that Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti plans to resign and Greece extended the deadline on a bond buyback offer.

Back home, the domestic markets despite getting a mildly positive start continued their range bound trade for the sixth straight day; there was hardly any effort of coming out of the woods. There was some sector specific actions that kept the markets buzzing, on one hand the auto sector lost its early gains on SIAM’s report that Domestic car sales fell by 8.25 per cent to 1,58,257 units in November this year compared to 1,72,493 units in the same month last year. The banking stocks showed last hour surge as following the go-ahead by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), banks begun restructuring the loans given to iron ore miners and other stakeholders such as truckers and shipping lines in Goa. Banks are said to having around Rs 1,300 crore of exposures to the mining industry and the loan servicing was badly affected after mining came to a standstill in the state. There was some buzz in the non sectoral gauge sugar too after the state government of UP raised the prices, at which sugar mills buy the new season crop, by up to 16 per cent to Rs 290 per 100 kg. All the UP based sugar companies remained under pressure, Bajaj Hindusthan was down by 1.25%, Shree Renuka Sugars was down by 2.50% and Balrampur Chini was down by 9.66%.

The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1544:1384 while 119 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 13.60 points or 0.07% and settled at 19,410.50. The index touched a high and a low of 19,478.01 and 19,362.32 respectively. 12 stocks were seen advancing while 18 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.64% while Small-cap index was up by 0.34%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty up 1.17%, Health Care up 1.04%, Bankex up 0.29%, FMCG up 0.17% and PSU up 0.17% were the top gainers, while Consumer Durables down by 1.50%, TECk down by 0.99%, IT down by 0.98%, Oil & Gas down by 0.74% and Capital Goods down by 0.40% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up 3.35%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 2.86%, Cipla up 1.55%, Tata Steel up 1.42% and Sun Pharma up 1.10%, while, TCS down by 2.52%, NTPC down by 1.91%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.40%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.25% and M&M down by 1.07% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, perturbed by the weak response of the much-hyped recently concluded 2G auctions, the Empowered Group of Ministers has decided to reduce the reserve price for spectrum by 30 per cent for spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka, the four circles which did not receive any bids in the recently concluded auction. Now the inter-ministerial panel would seek the Cabinet’s approval on the reduced base price for unsold airwaves in Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

The whole auctions turned out to be a damp squib, with the government getting less than a fourth of its revenue target of 40,000 crore and much lower than the expected target of minimum Rs 28,000 crore, as there were no takers for about 57% of the airwaves put on sale and it failed to attract even a single bid for 2G airwaves in the 1800 MHz band in these four regions.

The government had fixed a reserve price of Rs 14,000 crore per 5 MHz of spectrum. The reserve price for for Delhi was fixed price at Rs 693.06 crore for a slot of 1.25 Mhz in the 1800 Mhz band. The price for Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan was fixed at Rs 678.45 crore, Rs 330.12 crore and Rs 67.08 crore respectively.

The EGoM has also decided to simultaneously auction spectrum in the 900 MHz band in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. However, the reserve price for this spectrum band will be twice of the 1800 Mhz band, as it is considered to be more efficient and cost effective compared to the 1800 Mhz band. However, no decision on 800 MHz was taken; the minimum price for these airwaves had been set at 1.3 times that of GSM spectrum in the 1800 MHz band.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 3.00% at 14.51 from its previous close of 14.96 on Friday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 2.00 points or 0.03% to settle at 5,905.40. The index touched high and low of 5,919.95 and 5,888.10 respectively. 23 stocks advanced against 25 declining ones while 2 stock remained unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bank of Baroda was up 4.11%, HDFC up 3.71%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up 3.02%, PNB up 2.35% and Reliance Infrastructure was up 2.04%. On the other hand, TCS down 1.99%, Cairn India down by 1.88%, NTPC down by 1.85%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.52% and IDFC down by 1.45% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 down 0.76%, Germany’s DAX down 0.65% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down 0.33%.

Asian markets snapped the session mostly in green on Monday, buoyed by the Chinese optimism after data of industrial production as well as retail sales from the country suggested recovery in the global economy. However, China’s exports rose less than forecast in November. The customs administration reported that overseas shipments increased 2.9 percent from a year earlier and imports were unchanged. Meanwhile, Japanese market just managed a positive close despite the revised government data showing that GDP shrank 0.9 percent in July-September from the previous quarter. GDP contracted an annualized 3.5 percent in the three months period. The government revised down the previous quarter's figure to a 0.1 percent contraction, technically putting the country into recession.