Indian equities continue weak trade; Realty, CG and Metal drags

Indian equity markets trimmed mild losses but continued weak trade in the late afternoon session due to selling in frontline counters and taking cues from European counterpart. The sentiments on the street continued to be on pessimistic note despite apex bank, in an effort to prop up the sagging growth of the economy, slashed repo rate by much anticipated 25 basis points, although left CRR, key liquidity tool unchanged at 4%. Traders were seen adding some Health Care sector stocks, while selling was witnessed in Realty, Capital Goods (CG) and Metal sector. In the scrip specific development, Sun TV Network was trading in red after foreign brokerage firm downgraded the stock to neutral from buy. Liberty Shoes was trading in green after the board of directors approved corporate restructuring of the company. On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green barring Hang Seng while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 5,800 and 19,100 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 773:1901 while 128 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,087.29, down by 205.91 points or 1.07% after trading in a range of 19,378.61 and 18,939.47. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading lower by 1.13% and 1.19% respectively.

There only gainer on the BSE sectoral space was Health Care up 0.01%, while Realty down by 2.13%, Capital Goods down by 2.03%, Metal down by 1.93%, PSU down by 1.82% and Bankex down by 1.54% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 2.28%, ITC up by 0.94%, Sun Pharma up by 0.89%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.75% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.36%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 4.03%, BHEL down by 3.95%, Hero MotoCorp down by 3.33%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.83% and SBI down by 2.60% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, to create awareness among investors about fraudulent investment schemes, the corporate affairs ministry has proposed to go digital by sending short message alerts, initially to about one crore subscribers to State-owned telecom service provider BSNL asking them to take informed decisions before investing their money in any scheme.

With this move, the government is planning to focus on sensitive people who continue to get duped by fraudulent investment schemes. The corporate affairs ministry is also expected to approach other telecom service providers to reach out to more people.

The SMS campaign is likely to be carried out for about three to four months. The Ministry has proposed about Rs 1 crore for the investor awareness campaign and also plans to approach Doordarshan and all India Radio to expand the reach of the campaign. The government is also in talks with internet search engine Google to develop a Google-enabled mechanism regarding this.

Moreover, the ministry has also asked all state governments to take stern action against multi-level marketing companies that are found indulging in fraudulent schemes.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,767.20, down by 68.05 points or 1.17% after trading in a range of 5,863.60 and 5,724.30. There were 9 stocks advancing against 41 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Gail India up by 2.49%, Ranbaxy up by 1.22%, ITC up by 1.07%, Sun Pharmaceuticals up by 0.92% and Lupin up by 0.90%.

On the flip side, BHEL down by 3.96%, Jindal Steel down by 3.91%, Hero MotoCorp down by 3.82%, Reliance Infrastructure down by 2.95% and M&M down by 2.91% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading majorly in green; Shanghai Composite gained 0.78%, Jakarta Composite surged 0.50%, KLSE Composite increased 0.32%, Nikkei 225 surged 2.03%, Straits Times added 0.55%, KOSPI Composite soared 0.53% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.35%. On the other end, Hang Seng lost 0.19% was the sole loser.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 lost 0.44%, Germany’s DAX descended 0.43% and United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.23%.