Post session - Quick review

Trend at D-street emerged to be just contrary to previous session’s trend as bout of selling pressure, which was witnessed in the last hour of trade, mainly putting bulls to rest, prompted second negative close for Indian equity markets for Calendar Year 2013, with the first one being on January 7.

Shrugging off mostly positive global cues, Indian equity markets witnessed a gloomy session of trade, which led to loss of close to half a percent, thereby dragging 30 share index, Sensex and 50 share index, Nifty, close below psychological 19700 and 6000 respective levels. Disappointment was also witnessed across broader space, which led to Midcap and Smallcap index ending with cut of over quarter of a percent.

Much of the pressure crept in from stocks belonging to Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Metal and Consumer Durable space. While, drop of Realty and Bankex sector also bothered. However, markets were beaten blue once European markets came off their intra-day high.

Asian shares mostly ended in green on Wednesday as investors resumed buying after taking profits from a sharp rally at the start of the year while warily bracing for corporate earnings season to kick off in full force. Meanwhile, European shares, before cooling down, climbed towards a new 22-month high after an encouraging start to the fourth quarter earnings season buoyed investor sentiment. Alcoa, the largest aluminum producer in the United States, late on Tuesday, expressed optimism that demand for the metal would continue to grow in 2013.

Closer home, however, the positive start to Q3 earning season was not received well by Indian equity markets, which booked profit in IndusInd bank stocks despite strong Q3 numbers. Driven by robust growth in interest income, the Hinduja owned bank reported 30% year-on-year rise in its net profit at Rs 267 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012-13. Meanwhile, Railway stocks, too barring trend, enticed some fervor after registering the first hike in ten years, Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Wednesday increased passenger fares by up to 20 percent across the board. Beneficiaries of this development were Railways stocks, viz., Titagarh Wag, Kalindee Rail Nirman and Texmaco Rail & Engineering.

On the flip side, Auto stocks put up a strong face of resilience, after the society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) further downgraded the growth in the automobile industry for FY'13 to 0-2% from 1-3% projected in October this year, thereby reflecting acute slowdown being faced by the automobile manufacturers across all segments like commercial vehicles, two-wheelers as well as passenger cars. Additionally, even public sector Oil Marketing Companies, namely, BPCL, HPCL and IOC, aided benchmark equity indices in cutting short loss, after they rallied in the range of 1-4% on the reports of government plans of hiking the price of subsidised LPG cylinders by Rs 130 during January-March 2013, besides the plans of raising diesel prices by Rs 1.5 a litre every month. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1411:1560 while 128 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 87.12 points or 0.44% and settled at 19655.40. The index touched a high and a low of 19824.06 and 19627.16 respectively. 11 stocks were seen advancing while 19 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices down by 0.46% and 0.34% respectively.  (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Oil & Gas was up by 0.62%, Auto up by 0.59%, PSU up by 0.22% and Health Care up 0.14% were the only gainers, while FMCG down by 1.33%, Metal down by 1.33%, Consumer Durables down by 1.27%, Capital Goods down by 1.18% and Power down by 0.94% were the losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.77%, Gail India up by 1.69%, Coal India up by 1.46%, SBI up by 1.27% and ONGC India up 1.14%, while, Tata Steel down by 2.73%, BHEL down by 2.55%, Bajaj Auto down by 2.07%, ITC down by 2.03% and Jindal Steel down by 1.76% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, slowing GDP growth and high interest rates have slashed the car sales in India in the current fiscal. According to the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), car sales in December fell 12.5% to 141,083 units, the second consecutive monthly fall. So far this fiscal, car sales is down 0.33% on the same period a year ago. The auto industry is also expected to post weakest growth in nine years for this fiscal because of low GDP growth, rising fuel costs and expensive credit impacting the demand of cars in running fiscal.

As per the data released, motorcycle sales last month went up by 4.83% to 844,113 units from 805,198 units in December, 2011. Total two-wheeler sales for the reporting month rose by 4.45% to 11,37,148 units from 10,88,746 in the same month previous year.

Sales of commercial vehicles were down by 13% to 62,786 units from 72,166 units in the same period in 2011. Total sales of vehicles across categories registered an increase of 2.77% at 14,51,517 units last month as against 14,12,372 units in the same month previous year. The overall growth in domestic sales during April- December 2012 was 4.57% over the same period last year.

Further, SIAM has slashed its car sales growth forecast for the financial year ending March 2013 to 0-1%, its third downgrade this financial year from an initial estimate of 10-12%.

After a 30% expansion in sales in fiscal 2010-11, a slew of global carmakers including Ford, General Motors, and Nissan invested billions of dollars in building up their Indian operations. However, a series of interest rate hikes and rising fuel costs discouraged buyers, who are typically dependent on loans for purchases, affected the sales number of last year to 2.2%.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of marginally gained 0.37% at 13.32 from its previous close of 13.27 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 29.60 points or 0.49% to settle at 5,972.10. The index touched high and low of 6,020.10 and 5,958.45 respectively. 14 stocks advanced against 36 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Tata Motors was up by 4.09%, GAIL up by 1.66%, Coal India up by 1.50%, ONGC up by 1.43% and Bharti Airtel was up 1.24%. On the other hand, BHEL down by 2.91%, Tata Steel down by 2.69%, Ambuja Cements down by 2.67%, ITC down by 2.43 % and Ultra Tech Cement down by 2.29% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 up by 0.09%, Germany’s DAX up by 0.04% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.29%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday, after early session of profit taking from a sharp rally at the start of the New Year, ahead of corporate earnings season. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed with gains after a downturn in the prior session, with sentiment helped by recovery of Chinese shares. Japan’s Nikkei went home with green mark as yen slipped against the dollar.