Benchmarks collide in early trade on weak global cues

The Indian equity markets have made a gap down start and are butchered in the early trade weak global cues. The US markets slumped overnight, as a split emerged between France and Germany on ways to boost the European bailout fund while, all the Asian peers were trading on subdued note at this point of time, indicating somber investors’ sentiment. Back home, the domestic bourses were reeling under pressure as there only 2 gainers on the 30 Sensex stocks. While, continued selling by foreign funds and retail investors dampened the sentiments and BSE’s Sensex and NSE’s Nifty lost their crucial 16,900 and 5,100 mark respectively in the early trade. Meanwhile, the sentiment remained subdued as the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that India’s growth will fall below 8 percent and also that the government was unlikely to meet the 4.6 percent fiscal deficit target during the current financial year because of high commodity prices and turbulence in US and European economies. On the sectoral front, metal, oil & gas and power remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space while, there were no gainer on the index. Moreover, M and B Switchgears, the new listing today was trading with a discount of about 13 percent. The broader indices too were struggling to get some traction and were trading in the red at this point of time while, the market breadth has made a negative start; there were 532 shares on the gaining side against 976 shares on the losing side while 49 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 16,911.85; about 173 points lower compared to its previous closing of 17,085.34, and has touched a high and a low of 16,926.20 and 16,847.28 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 16,869.90, down by 215.44 points or 1.26%. There were 2 stocks advancing against 28 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a subdued start with 34.17% stocks advancing against 62.68% declines. The broader indices were also trading in the red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 0.39% and 0.28% respectively.

Metal down by 1.56%, Oil and Gas down by 1.43%, Power down by 1.19%, Bankex down by 1.19% and CG down by 1.16%, were the top losers on the index. While, there were no gainers on the index.

Sun Pharma up by 0.73% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.23% remained the only gainers on the Sensex while, HDFC down by 2.84%, Wipro down by 2.38%, ICICI Bank down by 2.37%, JP Associates down by 1.85% and NTPC down by 1.69% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, India’s mineral production moderated in the month of August by 5.99% compared to that of the preceding month, as per the data released by ministry of mines which showed that the index of mineral production of mining and quarrying sector in August 2011 was lower by 5.99% compared to that of the preceding month while the mineral sector has shown a negative growth of 3.36% during August as compared to that of the corresponding month of previous year.

India produced Rs 13378 core worth of minerals apart from atomic and minor minerals during August 2011. The highest contributor to the total tally was petroleum (crude) with 41% share which is equivalent to Rs 5432 crore followed by iron ore Rs 3143 crore, coal Rs 2264 crore, natural gas (utilized) Rs 1242 crore, lignite Rs 309 crore and limestone Rs 269 crore. These six minerals together contributed about 95% of the total value of mineral production in August 2011.

Production levels of important minerals in August 2011 were: coal 327 lakh tonnes, lignite 25 lakh tonnes, natural gas (utilized) 3993 million cu.m., petroleum (crude) 32 lakh tonnes, bauxite 912 thousand tonnes, chromite 262 thousand tonnes, copper conc. 12 thousand tonnes, gold 189 kg., iron ore 150 lakh tonnes, lead conc. 15 thousand tonnes, manganese ore 183 thousand tonnes, zinc conc. 126 thousand tonnes, apatite and phosphorite 201 thousand tonnes, dolomite 430 thousand tonnes, limestone 197 lakh tonnes, magnesite 17 thousand tonnes and diamond 1728 carat.

In August 2011 the output of dolomite increased by 9.70%, apatite and phosphorite 8.37%, lead conc. 7.93%, bauxite 1.52%, zinc conc. 0.86 percent. However the production of petroleum (crude) decreased by 0.92%, natural gas (utilized) 1.29%, copper conc. 2.61%, lignite 2.85%, limestone 2.95%, iron ore 4.16%, manganese ore 11.15%, magnesite 11.41%, gold 14.09%, coal 15.98%, chromite 17.90% and diamond 37.66 percent.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,086.55; about 53 points lower compared to its previous closing of 5,139.15, and has touched a high and a low of 5,091.30 and 5,067.95 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,077.10, down by 62.05 points or 1.21%. There were just 3 stocks advancing against 47 declines on the index.

The only gainers of the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 0.50%, Sun Pharma up by 0.49% and Ambuja Cement up by 0.10%.

HDFC down by 2.42%, ICICI Bank down by 2.31%, SAIL down by 2.30%, Wipro by 2.25% and Sesa Goa was down by 1.96%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite was down 46.28 points or 1.95% to 2,331.23, Hang Seng was down 359.46 points or 1.96% to 17,949.76, Jakarta Composite was down 32.86 points or 0.89% to 3,652.44, KLSE Composite was down 15.09 points or 1.04% to 1,435.16, Nikkei 225 was down 89.21 points or 1.02% to 8,683.33, Straits Times was down 19.32 points or 0.71% to 2,700.89, Seoul Composite was down 8.11 points or 0.44% to 1,847.81 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 76.66 points or 1.04% to 7,276.71.