Indian equities pare gains; Nifty slips below 5,950 mark

Indian equity markets pared gains to continue weak trade below neutral line in the late afternoon session on account of selling in front line counters and taking cues from European counterparts. This was despite receiving encouraging trade data which suggested that the country’s February exports rose by 4.25% from a year earlier and stood at $26.3 billion, leaving a narrower trade deficit of $14.9 billion. Traders were seen piling some position in Realty, Health Care and Power sector while selling was witnessed in Consumer Durables, IT and TECK sector. In the scrip specific development, Ranbaxy Laboratories was trading in green after Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities India upgraded the company to buy from neutral. The brokerage house also raised its target price on the stock. Reliance Industries (RIL) was trading in green after the stock was upgraded to neutral from underperform by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch citing increasing evidence of an improving refining outlook and an expected earnings growth recovery. The stocks from Auto sector where trading under pressure on reports that the passenger car sales growth rate in India plunged to a 12-year low in February, registering a 25.71% decline to 1,58,513 units as high fuel prices, interest rates and low consumer sentiments took a toll.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading on a mixed note while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 5,950 and 19,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1315:1377 while 130 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,662.75, down by 20.48 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 19,754.66 and 19,640.38. There were 12 stocks advancing against 17 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 0.13% and 0.18% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 0.96%, Health Care up by 0.53%, Power up by 0.38%, Capital Goods up by 0.34% and FMCG up by 0.28%, while Consumer Durable down by 1.09%, IT down by 0.78%, TECK down by 0.61%, Auto down by 0.51% and Bankex down by 0.26% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 2.06%, HDFC up by 1.95%, Tata Power up by 1.42%, Gail India up by 1.21% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.84%.

On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.55%, Jindal Steel down by 1.38%, Wipro down by 1.29%, Infosys down by 1.10% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.96%, were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), in its 189th meeting on March 13, will consider 26 proposals of foreign direct investment (FDI), including Punj Lloyd and Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company. Other FDI proposals that are scheduled to be considered include that of Muthoot Finance (Kerala), Euronet Services India, Asia Net Communication and Srei Infrastructure Finance.

To attract maximum FDI into the country, the government has been liberalizing the foreign investment policy. The government in FY14 Budget has proposed to follow the international practice with regard to defining FDI and foreign institutional investors (FII) to remove the ambiguity in making distinction between the two types of investments. India has allowed FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but for certain sensitive sectors, FIPB clearance is required.

For the April-December period of 2012-13, the inflows have declined by about 42 per cent to $16.94 billion. The sectors, which have received large FDI inflows during the nine months of the financial year are services, hotel, tourism, metallurgical, construction and automobiles. India received maximum FDI from Mauritius, followed by Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,942.65, down by 3.05 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 5,971.20 and 5,935.65. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Siemens up by 4.97%, HDFC up by 2.24%, Sun Pharma up by 2.19%, DLF up by 2.12% and Ranbaxy up by 1.56%.

On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.48%, IDFC down by 1.81%, Jindal Steel down by 1.44%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.12% and BHEL down by 1.06% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in mixed, Nikkei 225 strengthened 0.53%, Straits Times increased 0.20%, KLSE Composite added 0.25% and Taiwan Weighted added 0.29%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite slipped 0.35%, KOSPI Composite was down by 0.13%, Jakarta Composite lost 0.45% and Hang Seng was marginally in red by 1.13 points.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 lost 0.30%, Germany’s DAX descended 0.21% and United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 dropped by 0.05%.