Markets continue to trade listless in late morning trades

Domestic markets continued to trade listless in late morning trades in absence of buying interest from traders on concerns over recession in the US after lawmakers failed to arrive at a consensus to avert fiscal crisis. Moreover, most of the Asian equity indices were trading lower with Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan markets remaining closed on account of year-end holidays. However, Chinese benchmark edged higher in the trade, helped by strength in Chinese insurers and brokerages after mainland regulators said they plan to let them to develop and manage mutual funds.

Back home, both the frontline gauges were trading tad below their neutral lines as India’s current account data for July-September, due after market hours today, is expected to show a record high deficit, leading to a negative balance of payments. However, the losses remain capped as Metal stocks edged higher on upbeat Chinese manufacturing data from HSBC. China is the world's largest consumer of copper and aluminum. Some amount of support also came in from Oil and Gas shares which surged on report that natural gas producers like Reliance Industries (RIL) should be allowed to charge market prices, the Plan for next five years adopted by the nation’s highest planning body, headed by the Prime Minister.

On the sectoral front, realty, consumer durables and metal counters remained the top gainers while, FMCG, healthcare and software were reeling under pressure. The broader indices were trading with some traction, outperforming benchmarks while, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,389 shares on the gaining side against 1,026 shares on the losing side while 120 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19426.64 down by 18.20 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 19491.58 and 19421.49. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.18% and Small cap index was up by 0.49%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 1.26%, Consumer Durables up by 0.58%, Metal up by 0.55%, Auto up by 0.37% and PSU up by 0.32% while, FMCG down by 0.24%, Health Care down by 0.21%, IT down by 0.13%, Teck down by 0.10% and Capital Goods down by 0.10% were the losers on the sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 1.47%, Jindal Steel up by 1.43%, Hindalco Industries up by 0.85%, Sterlite Industries up by 0.77% and Tata Motors up by 0.76%.

On the flip side, TCS was down by 0.69%, Cipla was down by 0.68%, ITC was down by 0.67%, Sun Pharma  was down by 0.45% and HDFC was down by 0.39% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile Corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot, concerned with growing number of financial frauds has announced the setting up of a new intelligence unit that will delve into data mining from all possible sources to detect any wrongdoings by the companies and their promoters at the earliest possible stage.

The work of Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) will be supplemented by the new division which is primarily aimed to spot early warnings by analyzing the vast amount of electronic data available with the ministry. “The idea is to have a set of people to do the data mining, collection and checking of records that is available on various platforms, and link them with the inputs from investigating agencies”, Pilot said.

Further, Pilot said that SFIO should be brought into picture only when there is a larger public interest involved or when something is going to have far reaching implications. The new Companies Bill contains special provisions for fraud and grants statutory status to SFIO, which is expected to curb wrongdoings in the corporate world.

Moreover, experts also agree that investigations into a number of corporate frauds, including the high-profile Satyam scam, in the past have shown that many of them could have been detected at an earlier stage by a stronger oversight mechanism. 

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,902.20 down by 6.15 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 5,919.00 and 5,898.80. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Punjab National Bank up by 2.88%, DLF up by 2.60%, Bank of Baroda up by 1.43%, Jindal Steel up by 1.35% and Wipro up by 1.26%.

On the flip side, TCS down by 0.97%, ITC down by 0.79%, Ultra Tech Cement down by 0.70%, CIPLA down by 0.65% and Sun Pharma down by 0.64% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Hang Seng down by 0.04%, KLSE Composite down by 0.29% and Straits Times was down by 0.77%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 1.18%.

Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan markets remained closed for trade today on the account of public holiday.