Domestic bourses trade slightly lower tracking weak global markets

Domestic equity indices have made a flat start and were trading tad below their previous close level on weak global cues. Overnight, US stocks ended mostly flat, taking another pause in the recent rally that has driven the S&P 500 to five-year highs, as transportation and technology shares lost ground. Asian markets were trading in the red at this point of time with Shanghai composite losing the most on concern the government may accelerate measures to curb property-price gains. Japanese Nikkei also declined by over a percent on the back of profit booking after last session’s rally. Back home, investors remained cautious ahead of economic growth estimates (GDP) for the current fiscal year (FY13) which will be released later today by Central Statistical Office. The GDP numbers are likely to remain around 5.5 per cent, below the finance ministry’s estimate of 5.8 per cent. There is likely to be cautiousness as net direct tax collections during April-January this fiscal saw a slower pace of growth at 12.49 per cent as against the budgeted annual target of 15 per cent. Some pressure also came in from gold loans related stocks like Manappuram Finance and Muthoot Finance which declined in early trade as the working group set up by the Reserve Bank of India has suggested banks to increase their gold jewellery loans portfolio to curb large imports of gold.

On the sectoral front, software witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by technology and realty while, consumer durables, metal and capital goods remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were struggling to get some traction while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 929 shares on the gaining side against 771 shares on the losing side while 115 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19589.44; about 50 points lower compared to its previous closing of 19639.72, and has touched a high and a low of 19637.28 and 19574.73 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19626.36, down by 13.36 points or 0.07%. There were 10 stocks advancing against 19 declines and one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 51.18% stocks advancing against 42.48% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.17% while Small-cap index was down by 0.02%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 0.54%, TECk up by 0.31% and Realty up by 0.01%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.88%, Metal down by 0.39%, Capital Goods down by 0.33%, Health Care down by 0.28% and Power down by 0.25% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 1.12%, Infosys up by 0.59%, Tata Motors up by 0.47%, TCS up by 0.47% and BHEL up by 0.46%.

On the flip side, Cipla was down by 1.75%,  Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.54%, NTPC was down by 1.54%, Sterlite Industries was down by 1.39% and Gail India down by 0.93% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to contain the fiscal deficit to 5.3 percent of GDP for the current fiscal, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has urged the revenue department to take extra efforts to meet the budgeted indirect tax collection target for this fiscal. The Government has set an indirect tax collection target of Rs 5.05 lakh crore for 2012-13. In April-November 2012, indirect tax collections grew by 16.8 per cent to Rs 2.92 lakh crore.

While addressing a Central Board of Excise and Customs event, Chidambaram said “this has been a difficult year for tax collections, too as the economy slowed down, imports also slowed down, manufacturing too was subdued and therefore, collections have been affected”.

Chidambaram has asked the revenue department to focus more on shifting to a technology-driven regime for tax collection instead of following a rough approach. To avoid litigation in tax collection, finance minister has told the revenue department to adopt a non-adversarial approach for tax administration.    

Further, finance minister emphasized relying more on non-intrusive intelligence gathering, technology and non-adversarial tax administration to assure that revenues will be collected in a “just and fair” manner.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,936.45; about 22 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 5,959.20, and has touched a high and a low of 5,958.80 and 5,936.45 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,957.05, lower by 2.15 points or 0.04%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 31 declines and one stock remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 1.43%, IDFC up by 1.31%, HDFC up by 1.16%, Ranbaxy up by 0.92% and Axis Bank up by 0.72%.

On the flip side, Cipla down by 2.15%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.61%, Sesa Goa down by 1.31%, NTPC down by 1.25% and UltraTech Cement down by 1.25%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 31.99 points or 1.31% to 2,402.48, Hang Seng dropped 101.90 points or 0.44% to 23,155.03, Nikkei 225 tumbled 146.16 points or 1.27% to 11,317.59, Straits Times contracted 17.90 points or 0.55% to 3,258.63 and KOSPI Composite was down by 1.41 points or 0.07% to 1,934.78.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 9.06 points or 0.20% to 4,508.03 and KLSE Composite added 1.92 points or 0.12% to 1,616.06.

Taiwan Weighted is shut for the trade today.