Post Session: Quick Review:

Taking a U-turn from day’s high, Indian equity market registered fifth straight session of decline, highlighting little confidence that investors had ahead of crucial events lined up for the week, viz, start of Q4 earnings season with Infosys numbers, IIP and CPI figures. While, CPI numbers has continuously been rising, after a surprisingly strong rise in January, street widely expects India’s industrial production too, to shrink in February due to a contraction in infrastructure industry output and flagging demand.

Domestic equity markets, underperforming rest of the globe, yet again witnessed a disappointing session of trade, mainly due to the slide of blue chip stocks like ITC, Reliance, ONGC, SBI and Infosys. Meanwhile, reports of foreign funds emerging as net sellers in Indian equities for fourth consecutive session, with net selling of $30.03 million of equities on Monday, also dampened the sentiment at D-street. Besides, no consensus on Land Acquisition Bill, also added to the downside pressure. An all party meet convened to reach a consensus on the Land Acquisition Bill remained inconclusive on Tuesday and was postponed to April 18. In the surprisingly negative session of trade, barometer 30 share index, Sensex witnessed a cut of close to a percent, to shut shop near 18200 level, which was around 300 points lower from the day’s high, with Nifty too settling below the 5500 mark. Broader indices showing no exceptional trend went home with loss of close to a percent.

Asian pacific shares gained, led by commodity producers, as slower-than-estimated growth in China’s inflation damped concern that the nation’s central bank will need to tighten monetary policy. China’s inflation eased last month from a 10-month high, reducing pressure on policy makers to tighten credit. Meanwhile, European shares were lifted by miners on Tuesday, as investors hoped for more accommodative monetary policy from China after it reported benign inflation data and as US firm Alcoa reported solid earnings.

Back home, sectorally barring Auto counter, all 12 sectoral indices ended the trade in red. Worst performers were stocks from Information Technology (IT), Oil & Gas and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) counters. Weighed down by the steep losses of Wipro and more importantly Infosys, IT pivotal registered over 2% loss. In a big concern, Infosys witnessed a cut of over 2%, ahead of reporting Q4 earnings on Friday. Meanwhile, Wipro shares plunged over 11% in early trade on Tuesday, after the IT major hived off its non-IT business into an unlisted entity to comply with SEBI's minimum public shareholding norm. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 565: 1130 while 766 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 211.30 points or 1.15% and settled at 18,226.48. The index touched a high and a low of 18,565.56 and 18,206.61 respectively. 6 stocks were up, while 23 stocks declined and one stock remain unchanged on the index (Provisional)

Broader indices concluded in red; BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 1.00% and 0.84% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, IT down by 2.10%, Teck down by 1.88%, Oil & Gas down by 1.65%, PSU down by 1.57% and FMCG down by 1.44%, were the top losers, while Auto up by 0.41% was the sole gainer in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.26%, TCS up by 1.11%, Jindal Steel up by 0.35%, NTPC up by 0.25% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.24%. On the flip side Wipro down by 12.19%, ONGC down by 2.91%, Tata Power down by 2.39%, SBI down by 2.30% and Infosys down by 2.23% were the top losers on the Sensex. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, stronger external demand and progress on reforms could boost India's slowing economy to 6% growth this year. As per the multilateral funding agency ADB, reforms are required to facilitate more favorable investment environment and spur growth. However, cautioned that the country may fail to reach that level, if the government fails to pursue structural reforms further.

The agency in its report 'Asian Development Outlook 2013' has predicted growth in India to recover to 6% this year and 6.5% in 2014 from around 5% in 2012. As per the report, the growth forecast is an improvement over disappointing numbers last year but still far short of the capability of Asia's third-largest economy, which was seen few years back as a rising economic power that could even rival China, with the growth of over 9%.  

Highlighting inflation, as a key concern that is hampering India's scope to show high growth, ADB’s report said that the slowing growth has been paired with persistently high inflation. High prices, especially for food, limit the central bank's scope to reduce interest rates, although the Reserve Bank of India last month made its second cut this year to a key lending rate.  

Regarding the Asia’s emerging economies, it said that the growth in the developing Asia is expected to gain growth momentum this year, powered by rising domestic consumption and intra-regional trade, but authorities need to defend against the risks of inflation and asset bubbles arising from strong capital inflows.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of marginally gained 0.29% at 16.82 from its previous close of 16.77 on Monday. (Provisional)The S&P CNX Nifty lost 52.15 points or 0.94% to settle at 5,490.80. The index touched high and low of 5,603.05 and 5,487.00 respectively. 13 stocks advanced against 37 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were, Cairn up by 2.07%, Tata Motors up by 2.06%, TCS up by 1.30%, Ambuja Cements up by 0.89% and NTPC up by 0.60%. On the other hand, Reliance Infrastructure down by 3.54%, ONGC down by 3.50%, GAIL down by 2.61%, State Bank of India down by 2.59% and Punjab National Bank down by 2.50% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in green, France’s CAC 40 up by 0.56%, Germany’s DAX up by 0.22% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.35%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher on Tuesday, encouraged by positive inflation data from China and a firm start to the US earnings season. Shanghai Composite ended higher, the first advance in five days, as inflation in the world’s second-largest economy eased more than forecast from a 10-month high. However, Japan’s Nikkei went home with red mark after several sessions of gains, on profit-taking as the yen edged up slightly after hitting multi-year lows. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi closed higher but gains were limited by companies that do business in North Korea after the communist nation said it will suspend operations at a jointly run industrial complex.