Benchmarks end volatile day of trade on quiet note

Wednesday’s trading session was another disappointing day of trade for the Indian equity markets with frontline gauges declining for third straight day, as investors remained on sidelines ahead of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony. Though, markets opened on an optimistic note with both the frontline traded firm in morning trade tailing rally in other regional peers. Sentiments also got a boost by data showing that foreign funds remained net buyers of Indian stocks on May 21, 2013. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 679.44 crore.

Supportive cues from US markets provided the much needed support to local markets in first half. Investors’ morale got buttressed after two senior Federal Reserve officials hinted on continuation of US central bank’s stimulus plan to support flagging growth. Moreover, most of the Asian counters too ended in the green on Wednesday as the Bank of Japan stood pat after unleashing massive stimulus last month.

However, weakness in European market took their toll on domestic sentiments in second half and dragged the frontline gauges below their crucial 6,100 (Nifty) and 20,100 (Sensex) levels. Investors mainly resorted to profit booking following the decline in European markets.

Selling got intensified at local markets in last leg of trade after engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) reported below expectation profit for the March quarter. The company reported a fall of 6.90 percent in its net profit at Rs 1787.94 crore in Q4FY13 as compared to net profit of Rs 1920.41 crore in the same quarter previous year. Some cautiousness also came in from currency markets as Indian rupee depreciated by 18 paise to 55.59 against the dollar on the Interbank Foreign Exchange on fresh demand for the US currency from importers and banks. Selling was also visible in shares of public sector oil marketing companies viz, BPCL, HPCL and IOC ahead of Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss fuel pricing policy.

However, the losses remained capped as buying was seen in software and technology pack on the back of weak rupee. Some jubilation also came in from buying in sugar stocks like Shree Renuka Sugar, Bajaj Hindustan, Balrampur Chini Mills, EID Parry and Rana Sugars after the Uttar Pradesh cabinet gave in to a long-standing demand by the sugar industry to extend stamp duty and land registration waivers to existing as well as new sugar mills.

The NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty lost about twenty points to end below its psychological 6,100 support level, while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index - Sensex dipped by about fifty points to end below psychological 20,100 mark. Moreover, the broader markets too traded lower and ended the session with a cut of over half a percent.

The overall volumes stood at over Rs 1.90 lakh crore, which remained on the higher side as compared to that on Tuesday. The market breadth remained in favor of advances as there were 867 shares on the gaining side against 1,449 shares on the losing side while 130 shares remain unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex lost 49.37 points or 0.25% to settle at 20,062.24, while the CNX Nifty declined by 19.60 points or 0.32% to end at 6,094.50.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 20,220.35 and 20,000.86, respectively. The BSE Mid cap index down by 0.83% and Small cap index was down by 0.82%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were, Sun Pharma up 2.90%, Bharti Airtel up 2.25%, Dr Reddys Lab up 1.84%, NTPC up 1.48% and ITC up 1.28%, while L&T down 5.57%, Tata Power down 2.16%, Hero MotoCorp down 2.04%, GAIL India down 1.34% and Sterlite Industries down 1.25% were the top losers on the index. 

The top gainers on the BSE Sectoral space were FMCG up 0.83%, Health Care up 0.41%, TECk up 0.22% and IT up 0.13%, while Capital Goods down 3.67%, Realty down 3.47%, Oil & Gas down 0.98%, Power down 0.69% and Metal down 0.57% were the top losers on the sectoral space.

Meanwhile, the inflation based on consumer price index (CPI) for agricultural labourers (AL) and rural labourers (RL) declined in April as compared to the previous month. The point-to-point rate of inflation based on the CPI-AL and CPI-RL declined to 12.32 per cent and 12.15 per cent in April from 12.64 per cent and 12.62 per cent in March, 2013.  

The index varied from state to state and in case of agricultural labourers, Haryana with 784 points topped the index table whereas Himachal Pradesh with the index level of 557 points stood at the bottom. Further, the index value recorded an increase between 1-13 points in 18 states and a decrease of 2 points each in two states.

Referring to the rural labourers inflation, Haryana state again topped the index table with 779 points, whereas Himachal Pradesh state with the index level of 587 remained at the bottom. Index recorded an increase between 1-12 points in 17 states and a decrease of 2 points each in two states.

Regarding the state wise inflation, Tamil Nadu registered maximum increase of 13 and 12 points respectively in both series owing to the increase in prices of food items including rice, jowar, bajra, fruits and vegetables among others. On the other hand, Meghalaya  and Assam registered decline of 2 points each for CPI-AL and CPI-RL mainly due to decrease in the prices of rice, onion, dry chillies, vegetable, fruits, tobacco leaf and pan leaf.

The CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 6,147.60 and 6,074.45 respectively. 

The top gainers on the Nifty were Sun Pharma up 2.88%, Bharti Airtel up 2.48%, NTPC up 1.97%, Dr Reddy’s up 1.68% and ITC up 1.62%.

On the other hand, top losers on Nifty were, L&T down 6.05%, DLF down 5.92%, JP Associates down 4.23%, BPCL down 3.32% and Bank of Baroda down by 3.28%.

The European markets were trading in red, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.44%, the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.19% and Germany’s DAX down by 0.24%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday, on buyers spree amid renewed optimism about the global economy following recent encouraging data from across the globe, ahead of testimony by US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on the economic outlook. Japan’s Nikkei closed notably higher as the Bank of Japan maintained its plan to expand the monetary base. However, Shanghai Composite went home with red mark as China Resources Power Holdings, a state-owned electricity generator, sank 4.5%, dragging power producers lower.