Post session - Quick review

Indian equity markets consolidated on Friday ahead of the budget week, though the relief were extremely meager in view of the carnage the markets went through in the last session. Benchmarks barely managed to end flat albeit in negative terrain, after a sluggish start. While, the broader markets suffered another day of decline. The hangover of the global equity fall was clearly seen on the Indian bourses. However, there was a smart recovery in the Asian peers and the European markets too got a positive start but the local traders were concerned about the crucial budget being presented in the parliament next week.

Government on its part tried to keep the economic concerns at bay, by saying that the impact of partial deregulation of diesel prices on inflation and common man would remain 'small and muted', after it allowed oil companies to make small hikes in the price of diesel from time to time following which they raised the price twice by small margin. But traders remained cautious accessing the losses suffered during the two days nation wide strike by the trade unions.

Sectorally, high beta realty bounced back, gaining over one and half a percent for the day, though the housing ministry looks determined to introduce the pending legislation  in Parliament's budget session to set up a real estate watchdog, the private developers associations have disapproved the proposal saying that realty watchdog is only going to increase the number of clearances and checks, leading to further delay in housing projects. Technology and IT sector stocks too moved higher for the day , while all the major telecom players added subscriber numbers for the month of January, the early weakness in rupee supported the IT firms. Capital goods sector closed flat despite the Department of Heavy Industry’s plan to consider a policy particularly focusing on the capital goods sector to make the capital goods industry more competitive globally. The defensive sector FMCG witnessed a sharp cut of around one and half a percent, while the metal stocks remained under pressure for the second consecutive day, losing another half a percent.

The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1043: 1072, while 879 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 16.20 points or 0.08% and settled at 19309.16. The index touched a high and a low of 19401.75 and 19289.83 respectively. 16 stocks were seen advancing while 14 stocks were declining on the index. (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.02% while Small-cap index was down by 0.06%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty was up by 1.53%, TECk was up by 1.28%, IT was up by 0.79%, Health Care was up by 0.76% and Oil & Gas was up by 0.46% were the top gainer, while FMCG down by 1.55%, Auto down by 0.59%, Metal down by 0.53%, PSU down by 0.44% and Consumer Durables down by 0.06% were the only losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were, Bharti Airtel up by 4.49%, Wipro up 2.79%, Sun Pharma up by 2.04%, ICICI Bank up by 1.58% and Gail India up by 1.01%, while, Coal India down by 2.56%, Hindustan Unilever down by 2.53%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.35%, ITC down by 1.85% and HDFC down by 1.84% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, concerned over the industrial unrest witnessed during the two-day nation-wide strike, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, revival in economic growth will help combat industrial tension. As per Ahluwalia, when the industry is back into a normal state, many other tensions like strikes and spiraling prices will go down. 

Around 11 trade unions have called a strike on February 20 and 21 against strict enforcement of labour laws, spiraling prices, creation of social security net for workers in unorganized sector as well as raising minimum wages to Rs 10,000 per month, among others. Industry body Assocham said that the GDP may lose about Rs 26,000 crore due to the strike which has impacted industrial activity and services such as banking and finance.

While addressing an event on leveraging employment generation in the 12th Five Year Plan, Ahluwalia stated the need of public private partnership (PPP) for employment generation and skill development as the number of people in India is not skilled.

Earlier also Ahluwalia emphasized on the fact that the government need to make sure that the young generation are educated and equipped with both the educational and skill weapons in order to deal with rapidly changing and increasingly globalizing world, which is a huge challenge for the country. India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of marginally lost 0.88% at 16.79 from its previous close of 16.94 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 3.90 points or 0.07% to settle at 5,848.35. The index touched high and low of 5,873.80 and 5,835.80 respectively. 25 stocks advanced against 24 declining and one stock remains unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 4.51%, DLF up by 3.51%, Wipro up by 2.65%, Power Grid up by 2.25% and Sun Pharmaceuticals was up by 1.57%. On the other hand, Hindustan Unilever down by 2.79%, Coal India down by 2.69%, JP Associate down by 2.23%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.13% and HDFC Cement down by 1.85% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in green with, Germany’s DAX up by 0.40%, the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.60% and France’s CAC 40 up by 1.08%.

Asian equity markets ended mixed on Friday after recovering from earlier session's steep falls as investors took some comfort from the Federal Reserve's commitment to ultra-soft monetary policy for now, but weak US and European data capped Friday's recovery. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei closed higher, recovering from Thursday's drop. China’s Shanghai Composite went home with red mark after extending yesterday’s decline, as new home prices rose in most cities for third month, adding pressure on leaders to intensify policy-tightening to prevent asset bubbles.