Post session - Quick review

Railway Minister Pawan Bansal's maiden Budget failed to impress D-Street, whereby investors queued up for money, exiting out of risky equities, the budget was seen as lacking big announcements or projects. Many of the railway stocks, namely, Kalindee Rail Nirman, Kernex Microsystems, Titagarh Wagons, Texmaco Rail and BEML, shed value after Railway Minister reported mounting losses of Indian Railways and failed to announce any fresh, direct, fare hikes. As per the estimates, the Indian Railways is likely to suffer a loss of Rs 24,600 crore in fiscal year ending March 31 as compared to Rs 22,500 crore in the previous fiscal. Besides this, no benefit announcement for the railway wagon makers, also weighed on railway stocks.

What stoked the selling was commodity companies, particularly iron ore, steel, fertiliser and cement, which will have to bear the brunt of the increase in freight charges as they depend to a large extent on railways to move their raw materials/products.

Thus, by the close of trade, Sensex, registering over three hundred point of losses, ended below the 19100 level, likewise over one and half percent cut in Nifty, took the barometer gauge below 5800 level, its first in three months. Broader indices, too ended down in dump, with cuts being more deeper than that of frontline equity indices.

Fall at D-street also tracked a sell-off in world equity markets after Italy's inconclusive election result sent safe-haven German bond yields sharply lower as investors feared a resurgence of the euro zone debt crisis. Italy's centre-left coalition will win a majority in the lower house of parliament but the upper house will remain uncertain. A split verdict in the euro zone's third-largest economy is seen as likely to paralyse any new government and potentially reignite the euro-zone debt crisis.

Back home, although Railway Budget remained the highlight of the day, telecom stocks managed to hog some limelight. Spectrum auction fiasco fired up telecom stocks in early deals. Telecom stocks, namely, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication, gained some traction with the expectation that the failure to attract enough number of bidders for the GSM spectrum auction would benefit the existing player. On the BSE sectoral front, Oil & Gas, Auto and Capital Goods counters, were beaten blue.  On the flip side, only Technology space managed to put up some resistance.The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 782: 2059 while 120 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 299.73 points or 1.55% and settled at 19031.96. The index touched a high and a low of 19293.49 and 18976.94 respectively. 5 stocks were seen advancing while 25 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined by 1.73% and 2.41% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, IT up by 1.08% and TECk up by 0.91% were the only gainers, while Auto down by 2.93%, Capital Goods down by 2.73%, Oil & Gas down by 2.65%, PSU down by 2.19% and Metal down by 2.19% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up 1.81%, TCS up 1.75%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.96%, NTPC up by 0.30% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.22%, while, Bajaj Auto down by 4.22%, Hindalco Industries down by 4.21%, HDFC down by 3.76%, Tata Motors down by 3.53% and Maruti Suzuki down by 3.43% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the second round of the 2G spectrum auction sale is expected to set up a flop show as there is no applicant for GSM band of radiowaves. While, for CDMA band, Russian Sistema's Indian joint venture, Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) is the only firm at close of deadline on Monday for applying to take part in the auction. 

The government has planned to conduct auction for spectrum unsold in November auction along with spectrum that is held by operators whose licences are due for renewal in 2014. It will auction 15 MHz of radio waves each in Delhi and Mumbai in the 1800 Mhz band, currently used for 2G GSM services, as against 4.4 Mhz and 13.2 Mhz respectively released in these circles through quashed permits.

However, in the second round of auctions in March, the government is expected to get around Rs 25,316 crore from the auction in the premium 900 Mhz band, and Rs 14,579 crore from auction of unsold spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band, while for CDMA, it is expected to get over Rs 6463 crore.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility gained 3.76% at 17.36 from its previous close of 16.73 on Monday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 87.25 points or 1.49% to settle at 5,767.50. The index touched high and low of 5,838.85 and 5,748.60 respectively. 8 stocks advanced against 42 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were TCS was up by 1.75 %, Infosys up by 1.75%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.30%, Grasim up by 0.98% and JP Associate was up by 0.74%. On the other hand, Ranbaxy down by 4.76%, Hindalco down by 4.31%, Bajaj-Auto down by 4.30%, HDFC down by 3.75% and Maruti Suzuki down by 3.61% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 down by 2.12%, the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 1.23% and Germany’s DAX down by 1.82%.

Asian equity markets went home with red mark on Tuesday, as investors remained frightened by an election in Italy that left no clear winner, leading to political uncertainty and fresh worries about euro-zone stability. Japan’s Nikkei ended lower with huge losses, as yen rebounded sharply, resulting fall in exporter shares. Meanwhile, South Korean stocks closed in negative territory, amid stock specific movement.