Benchmarks extend losses in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks extended losses and continued their weak trade in morning deals, on the back of sustained selling activities by market-participants. Sentiments remained downbeat with RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Jayanth R Varma’s statement that India's Gross domestic product (GDP) growth appears to be 'very fragile' and it may fall short of what the country needs to meet the aspirations of its growing workforce. Some concern also came as the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in its report for January 2023 stating that as many as 335 infrastructure projects, each entailing an investment of Rs 150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns of more than Rs 4.46 lakh crore. Traders overlooked Union minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that the country would become the third largest economy in the world (from fifth position at present) in the next five years and by 2047 could be at the level the United States of America is at present. He added the 1.4 billion people of India are going to make the economy a $30-40 trillion one.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading lower as higher January inflation and strong consumer spending figures from the United States raised fresh concerns about the outlook for interest rates. Back home, the auto component industry stocks remained in watch as credit ratings agency Icra said Auto component replacement demand is estimated to grow 6-8 per cent in the next fiscal driven by factors such as the increase in mobility and healthy freight movement, among others.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 58983.68, down by 480.25 points or 0.81% after trading in a range of 58937.64 and 59441.13. There were 9 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 1.22%, while Small cap index was down by 1.24%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.46% and Bankex up by 0.05%, while TECK down by 2.39%, IT down by 2.34%, Telecom down by 1.77%, Auto down by 1.73% and Metal down by 1.57% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.98%, NTPC up by 0.94%, Power Grid Corporation up by 0.44%, Nestle up by 0.42% and SBI up by 0.39%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 2.82%, TCS down by 2.30%, Tata Motors down by 2.22%, Tata Steel down by 1.96% and Wipro down by 1.82% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in its report for January 2023 has said that as many as 335 infrastructure projects, each entailing an investment of Rs 150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns of more than Rs 4.46 lakh crore. According to the Ministry, which monitors infrastructure projects worth Rs 150 crore and above, out of 1,454 projects, 335 reported cost overruns and as many as 871 projects were delayed.

It mentioned that total original cost of implementation of the 1,454 projects was Rs 20,59,065.57 crore and their anticipated completion cost is likely to be Rs 25,05,248.43 crore, which reflects overall cost overruns of Rs 4,46,182.86 crore (21.67 per cent of original cost). The expenditure incurred on these projects till January 2023 was Rs 13,53,875.70 crore, which is 54.04 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

However, it said the number of delayed projects decreased to 703 if delay is calculated on the basis of the latest schedule of completion. Further, it showed that for 309 projects neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported. Besides, it said  out of the 871 delayed projects, 169 have overall delays in the range of 1-12 months, 157 have been delayed for 13-24 months, 414 projects for 25-60 months and 131 projects have been delayed for more than 60 months. The average time overrun in these 871 delayed projects was 39.69 months.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17329.95, down by 135.85 points or 0.78% after trading in a range of 17300.90 and 17451.60. There were 11 stocks advancing against 39 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports &SEZ up by 1.06%, NTPC up by 0.94%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.90%, BPCL up by 0.46% and SBI up by 0.41%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 4.17%, Bajaj Auto down by 3.92%, UPL down by 3.16%, Infosys down by 2.75% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 2.41% were the top losers.

All Asian markets are trading lower; Hang Seng declined 149.13 points or 0.75% to 19,860.91, Shanghai Composite weakened 3.78 points or 0.12% to 3,263.38, KOSPI dropped 27.21 points or 1.12% to 2,396.40, Jakarta Composite plunged 21.59 points or 0.32% to 6,834.99, Straits Times fell 17.42 points or 0.53% to 3,264.88 and Nikkei 225 slipped 36.9 points or 0.13% to 27,416.58.