Benchmarks in shambles; rate sensitives suffer profit booking

Shedding the minor gains, Indian equity markets have now tumbled to intra-day’s low level on account of accentuated selling pressure, which led the benchmarks crack over half a percent in absence of any positive catalyst. Sensex, losing over a century points is trading below the 19450 level and widely followed index, Nifty, losing close to 30 points is trading sub 5900 level. Broader indices, too capitulating to selling pressure are trading down in red. On the global front, Asian shares were staging mixed trend, with Tokyo climbing after the national parliament approved the Bank of Japan's next governor, while South Korean market was being weighed by a decline in Samsung Electronics, after the technology giant revealed its latest smart phone. Closer home, support rendered by stocks belonging to Consumer Durables, Information Technology and HealthCare counters has been offset by the plunge of realty, Bankex and Oil & Gas sector.  Rate sensitive, which gained ground in previous trading session on re-ignited rate cut hopes following the core inflation data, are trading down beat since early deals on profit-booking.  The market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which have thumped advances in the ratio of 1451:1030, while 124 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19435.80, down by 134.64 points or 0.69% after trading in a range of 19673.16 and 19432.41. There were 14 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices too surrendered to the selling pressure; the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index were trading lower by 0.30% and 0.32% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.43%, IT up by 0.67%, Health Care up by 0.43%, Fast Moving Consumer Goods and TECk up by 0.26%, while, Realty down by 2.24%, Bankex down by 2.12%, Oil & Gas down by 1.03%, Auto down by 0.85% and Capital Goods down by 0.56% were the only losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.16%, Cipla up by 1.01%, Infosys up by 0.92%, Hindalco Industries up by 0.78% and ONGC up by 0.72%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 4.65%, Tata Motors down by 2.51%, Gail India down by 2.09%, HDFC Bank down by 1.99% and RIL down by 1.93% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industries Minister Anand Sharma has said that to meet the $125 billion target of engineering exports by next fiscal, India needs to identify new countries along with strengthening its base in key markets of the US and Europe.

Sharma after inaugurating --India Engineering Sourcing Show (IESS) -- the three-day event, which provides a platform for India to showcase its engineering strengths and gives global players an opportunity to source vendors, stated that 'the Ministry has set a target of $125 billion by 2013-14 for engineering goods export. We believe our efforts in identifying new countries to partner with for engineering sector along with strengthening our base in US and Europe will help boost Indian engineering export”.

Engineering goods exports which include exports of goods, transport equipment, capital goods, other machinery/equipment and light engineering products like castings, forgings and fasteners, constitutes around one-fourth of the country's total merchandise shipments and the US and Europe account for over 60 per cent of the country's total engineering exports.

During the April-December period of FY13, export of engineering goods declined by 7 per cent to $40 billion against $43 billion recorded in the same period of the previous year. The engineering goods export for this fiscal is likely to remain at $60 billion as it was in the previous fiscal. The global economic crisis, sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the economic slowdown in developed economies are the major reasons for contracting the engineering goods exports.The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,877.05, down by 31.90 points or 0.54% after trading in a range of 5,945.65 and 5,874.75. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Siemens up by 3.38%, Asian Paints up by 1.67%, HUL up by 1.21%, Cipla up by 1.16% and IDFC up by 1.09%.

On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 4.72%, DLF down by 3.85%, Tata Motors down by 2.66%, Reliance Industries down by 2.04% and Gail India down by 2.03% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading on a mixed note; KLSE Composite dipped 0.57%, Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.31% and KOSPI Composite declined 0.78%

On the other hand, Jakarta Composite gained 1.27%, Straits Times added 0.70% Hang Seng inched higher by 0.07%, Shanghai Composite rose 0.30% and Nikkei 225 was up 1.45% were the gainers.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 added 0.93%, Germany’s DAX ascended 1.10% and United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 jumped by 0.74%.