Benchmarks trade in red; Power, Consumer Durables decline

Indian markets were trading in the red in late morning session after the DMK party pulled out of ruling UPA coalition on Tuesday, raising doubts about the fate of government's reforms. On the global front, Asian shares extended their losses on Wednesday and investors gave the euro a wide berth after a bailout deal for Cyprus was thrown into disarray. Cyprus’ Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a proposed tax on bank deposits as a condition for bailout aid, pushing the Mediterranean island a step closer to the brink of financial meltdown.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in FMCG, Health Care and Metal while selling was seen in, Power, Consumer Durables and PSU sector. In scrip specific development, banking stocks continued to be under pressure for the second day after the RBI cut its key repo rate by 25 basis points on Tuesday. Sugar stocks tanked after the government deferred a decision on decontrolling sugar. 

In scrip specific actions, Asian Paints soared after the company's board approved acquiring a 51% stake in Sleek group, an organized player in the modern kitchen space, to foray into home improvement segment. Mahindra & Mahindra slumped after the company stated that it will suspend some tractor production next week as part of aligning production with sales requirements. Bharti Airtel declined after a court on Tuesday, March 19, 2013, summoned Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in allocation of airwaves in 2002.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5700 and 18,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing negative trend with advances to declines in ratio of 738: 1280.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18992.25, down by 15.85 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 19028.09 and 18900.88. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.55% and Small cap index was down by 0.52%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 0.47%, Health Care up by 0.47%, Metal up by 0.05% and Capital Goods up by 0.01% while, Power down by 0.97%, Consumer Durables down by 0.82%, PSU down by 0.72%, Realty down by 0.64%, and Oil & Gas down by 0.64%were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.79%, Cipla up by 1.25%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.24%, TCS up by 1.09% and Sun Pharma up by 0.89%.

On the flip side, NTPC was down by 2.56%, ONGC was down by 1.36%, Infosys was down by 0.79%, RIL was down by 0.61% and Wipro was down by 0.54% were the top losers on the Sensex. Meanwhile, the government has set up a panel to formulate a policy on public-private partnership framework with state-owned - Coal India (CIL) to increase the country’s coal output. The nine-member committee chaired by Coal Secretary S K Srivastava has representatives from the various departments including finance, law and justice ministries.

Earlier, Finance Minster, in his Budget speech has stated the need to devise a PPP policy framework to reduce the country’s increasing dependence on imported coal in the medium to long-term. India imported 112.8 million tonnes of thermal and coking coal between April-January period of FY13, up by 29% from a year earlier, as domestic supply fell short of surging demand in Asia's third-largest economy.

CIL, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal output, missed its production target last fiscal and produced only 435.84 million tonne (MT) against the revised target of 447 MT for various reasons, including delays in obtaining environment and forestry approvals for new mines. However, in India, coal supply has failed to keep pace with capacity growth in the power sector in India, where energy output falls far short of the demand of a fast-growing economy and an increasingly affluent population.  

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,733.65 down by 12.30 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 5,745.30 and 5,705.95. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 1.76%, Cipla up by 1.34%, Lupin up by 1.28%, Sesa Goa up by 1.00% and TCS up by 0.96%.

On the flip side, UltraTech Cement down by 2.75%, NTPC down by 2.49%, ACC down by 2.02%, Reliance Infra down by 1.78% and ONGC down by 1.31% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Jakarta Composite dipped 13.16 points or 0.27% to 4,809.46, Straits Times slipped 9.25 points or 0.28% to 3,260.00, KOSPI Composite declined 11.26 points or 0.57% to 1,965.96 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 47.50 points or 0.61% to 7,790.97.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite soared 47.37 points or 2.10% to 2,304.80, Hang Seng rose 159.25 points or 0.72% to 22,201.11 and KLSE Composite was up by 4.02 points or 0.25% to 1,629.48.

Japanese Nikkei remained shut for the trade today.