Markets continue to trade in negative territory lacking any supportive cues

Markets continue to remain range-bound in negative territory; there is hardly any cue that could take the markets move higher. While, there was some hopes of rate cut by the RBI in its upcoming monetary policy due to lower inflation numbers, the weak earnings announcements has made the investors cautious about the economic growth. There has been concern that RBI would also factor in the persistent current account deficit into its monetary policy decisions, as the gold demand went up 41% to 262 tonnes during the October-December quarter. The finance ministry and RBI have identified gold imports as a key concern; government has been taking different measures to curb gold import and has responded by increasing the import duty to 6% from around 1% a year ago. Back on street, weak earnings of DLF was weighing down the Realty segment, while the strength in rupee has pressured the IT sector stocks. The market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 747 shares on the gaining side against 1,611 shares on the losing side while 103 shares remain unchanged.
 
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,431.78 down by 65.40 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 19,487.24 and 19,399.01. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.43% and Small cap index was lower by 0.95%.

The top losers on sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty down by 1.14%, Consumer Durables down by 1.01%, Auto down by 0.81%, IT down by 0.79% and Oil & Gas down by 0.77% while, there were no losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 0.94%, Tata Power up by 0.84%, HDFC Bank up by 0.66%, Sterlite Industries up by 0.56% and Gail India up by 0.46%.

On the flip side, Dr Reddys Lab down by 2.24%, Tata Steel down by 1.30%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.29%, Jindal Steel down by 1.27% and Tata Motors down by 1.25% 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 5,871.75 down by 25.20 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 5,889.45 and 5,862.80. There were 13 stocks advancing against 36 declines and one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharmaceuticals up by 0.94%, Ranbaxy Laboratories up by 0.86%, Tata Power up by 0.84%, HDFC Bank up by 0.70% and NTPC up by 0.54%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 2.74%, Cairn down by 2.53%, Dr Reddy's Laboratories down by 2.11%, Lupin down by 1.69% and HCL Tech down by 1.62%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Hang Seng slipped 0.09%, KLSE Composite dipped 0.09%, Nikkei 225 tumbled 1.18% and Straits Times was down by 0.34%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 0.47% and KOSPI Composite was up by 0.08%.

Markets in China and Taiwan remained shut for the Lunar New Year holiday.