Post Session: Quick Review

Indian equity markets witnessed nasty laceration of over one and half a percent on Thursday on account of ferocious selling pressure, which contributed to yet another down session of trade. Underperforming the rest of the globe, Indian benchmarks were in dire state, plagued by the concerns over the big river of FII inflows drying up, which combined with the political uncertainties led for a sharp fall. Both the barometer 50 and 30 share indices, Nifty and Sensex, breaking their 200 day moving average, ended below the psychological 18500 and 5600 respective levels, with a colossal cut of over a percent and half each. Meanwhile, broader indices too tailing frontline equity indices trajectory, ended with massive losses of similar magnitude.

On the global front, Asian stock markets although ended mostly in red, Nikkei 225 index showcased an exceptional session of performance, after the Bank of Japan said it would massively expand money supply to create inflation and lift the country out of its long economic malaise. Meanwhile, European shares showed a mixed trend in a choppy morning session on Thursday ahead of policy decisions by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England. Risk sentiment, on one hand, got a boost from aggressive monetary easing announced by the Bank of Japan early on Thursday, but markets were also tempered over worries about Cyprus and the euro zone.

Closer home, apparently, the speech by Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and a contender for Prime Minister Post in 2014, on Thursday, failed to soothe the nerves of wary investors, which dreading early election after the pull-out of a key regional ally from the ruling coalition last month, pressed panic buttons. In the sea of red, stocks from Realty, Information Technology, Consumer Durable and Banking counters were the major laggards. Technology shares ran out of steam, with Infosys down 2.7 percent and Tata Consultancy Services lower by 2.5 percent, on negative economic data from the United States, which is the biggest outsourcing market for Indian tech firms. Meanwhile, Bank shares also fell, a day after data showed advances grew at a slower pace in 2012/13 compared with a year earlier and fell short of the central bank's projection, hurt by lower demand for credit from companies in a slowing economy. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 894: 1854 while 113 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 302.40 points or 1.61% and settled at 18499.24. The index touched a high and a low of 18733.62 and 18473.85 respectively. 6 stocks were up, while 24 stocks declined on the index (Provisional)

Broader indices concluded in red; BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 1.88% and 2.06% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty down by 3.37%, IT down by 2.62%, Teck down by 2.56%, Bankex down by 1.98% and Consumer Durables down by 1.96%, were the top losers, while there were no gainers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr Reddys Lab up by 3.55%, Coal India up by 2.56%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.91%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.06% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.26%. On the flip side Jindal Steel down by 4.96%, Tata Steel down by 3.97%, Sterlite Industries down by 3.09%, Infosys down by 2.74% and Hero MotoCorp down by 2.67% were the top losers on the Sensex. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, disappointed over the GDP growth rate slipping to decade low of 5 per cent in the FY13, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that Indian economy is facing only a temporary downturn and will soon bounce back to 8 per cent growth path with some speedy and decisive Government action. While speaking at the CII AGM meeting, he said that domestic constraints must be removed if the economy is to perform at full potential and will further relax the FDI policy and take steps to bring down inflation. The Government will take all steps to ensure that foreign fund flows remain strong and restore the macro-economic balance.

The PM said that the domestic economy downturn is caused partly due to global factors which cannot be controlled. Regarding the widening current account deficit (CAD), Singh said that the country has to cope with weak exports and higher CAD, which is due to global factors out of their reach. The CAD reached an all-time high of 6.7 percent of gross domestic product in the third quarter of FY13. On fiscal deficit he said that the high fiscal deficit is unacceptable and the Government is determined to take necessary steps to reduce it. As per the road map, the Government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3 percent of GDP by 2016-17.

He felt optimistic about India getting back to the high growth path of 8 percent amidst problems like corruption, bureaucratic inertia and the difficulties in managing coalition.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility gained 6.59% at 15.85 from its previous close of 14.87 on Wednesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 98.15 points or 1.73% to settle at 5,574.75. The index touched high and low of 5,644.45 and 5,565.65 respectively. 7 stocks advanced against 43 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Dr. Reddy's Laboratories up by 3.00%, Coal India was up by 2.70%, Hindustan Unilever was up by 1.82%, Maruti Suzuki was up by 1.27% and Tata Motors was up by 0.49%. On the other hand, UltraTech Cement down by 6.45%, JP Associate down by 6.37%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 5.12%, HCL Tech down by 4.49% and Reliance Infrastructure down by 4.12% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in green, France’s CAC 40 up by 0.80% and Germany’s DAX up by 0.30% while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down by 0.06%.