Benchmarks continue weak trade; Realty, Auto decline

Indian benchmarks have fallen about half a percent in the late morning session due to continued selling by funds and retail investors amid a weak trend in global markets. Sentiments got dampened on weak trend in the Asian trade, following overnight losses in the US market. Lower-than-expected quarterly earnings by some blue-chip companies added to the woes. On the global front, Asian shares eased on Friday with investors turning cautious on weak euro zone growth data ahead of the G20 meeting on Feb 16 in Moscow. Back home, The traders were seen selling Realty, Auto and Consumer Durables Consumer sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Suzlon Energy plunged and DLF dropped on weak Q3 results. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam slumped on reporting net loss of Rs 1182.18 crore in Q3 December 2012, higher than net loss of Rs 929.77 crore in Q3 December 2011.However, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 5850 and 19,400 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was negative; advances is to declines in the ratio of 673: 1431.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19497.18 down by 76.84 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 19639.83 and 19584.21. There were 12 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.40% and Small cap index was down by 0.91%.

There was no gainer sectoral index on the BSE while ,Realty down by 0.97%, Auto down by 0.93%, Consumer Durables down by 0.90%, Metal down by 0.78% and Oil & Gas down by 0.72% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 85%, NTPC up by 0.64%, Tata Power up by 0.63%, ONGC up by 0.58% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.45%.

On the flip side, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 2.06%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.65%, Tata Motors was down by 1.45%, RIL was down by 1.42% and Coal India was down by 1.35%  were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, moving a step closer to seal a deal that is expected to boost trade and investment, the negotiations for the India-EU Free Trade agreement (FTA) is expected to conclude by April this year. French Minister for external trade Nicole Bricq and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on February, 14 discussed the issues like level of market access relating to the FTA.

India and the European Unions (EU) are negotiating a broad-based Indian-EU Trade and Investment pact since June 2007 and have missed several deadlines to conclude the talks due to various differences. Meanwhile, during the meeting, both sides expect to close the negotiations by summer of April 2013 and hoped for a balanced and ambitious agreement.

While, addressing business chambers, Bricq said 'we are negotiating an FTA but we are still facing problems. From our side we still have few questions on liberalization of services sector on Indian part and some difficulties in automobile sector'.

Anand Sharma, in the meeting, also emphasized on the need for declaration of Data Adequacy Status from the 27-nation bloc to enable EU commitments in cross-border supply to be commercially meaningful to India. Further, Sharma added that considerable scope is available for French investments in India especially in sectors including high-tech sector, environmental technologies, energy including renewable, infrastructure and food processing sector.

Earlier, in February, the EU has underlined the need of more negotiations to sort out the remaining issues before a FTA with India is signed. During a special summit in Brussels, the EU leaders expressed the importance of building up bilateral trade relations with key emerging economies such as India, which could be 'very beneficial for promoting growth and employment'.   

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,868.90 down by 28.05 points or 0.48% after trading in a range of 5,889.45 and 5,862.80. There were 14 stocks advancing against 35 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 1.61%, Sun Pharma up by 0.78%, Tata Power up by 0.68%, BPCL up by 0.66% and NTPC up by 0.64%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 2.80%, Cairn down by 2.53%, DR Reddy down by 1.90%, ACC down by 1.65% and HCL Tech down by 1.60%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Hang Seng slipped 35.84 points or 0.15% to 23,377.41, KLSE Composite dipped 1.52 points or 0.09% to 1,629.37, Nikkei 225 tumbled 173.31 points or 1.53% to 11,133.97 and Straits Times was down by 10.92 points or 0.35% to 3,279.89.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 21.48 points or 0.47% to 4,610.15 and KOSPI Composite was up by 0.17points or 0.01% to 1,979.24.

Markets in China and Taiwan remained shut for the Lunar New Yea