Post Session: Quick Review

It was a complete washout session at D-Street, wherein relentless profit-booking by investors as well as funds houses led to nasty laceration of over one and half percent for benchmark indexes, Sensex and Nifty, which ended sub 19200 and 5800 levels respectively. Indian rupee, which collapsed to fresh historic low’s by touching new low levels of Rs 58.96 against the dollar in early deals mainly aggravated hefty position squaring in local equity markets. However, amid the rupee touching a record low of 58.96 to a dollar, the Finance Ministry said it is “not unduly disturbed” by the fall, and the domestic currency will stabilize in the next 3-4 days with large foreign fund flows.

Besides rupee, even mounting jitters ahead of the release of factory output and inflation data ahead of the central bank's review next week, persuaded investors to go short on risky bets and kept markets in tizzy. HSBC Markit released India's manufacturing purchase managers' index (PMI) data for May shows IIP data, which  is up for release tomorrow, may throw up unpleasant surprise more so because the past four quarters have seen substantial built-up of inventories.

Additionally, pessimistic global leads too endorsed the underlying weakness of bourses. Asian stocks fell, led by Japanese shares, after the Bank of Japan kept its policy unchanged. Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong headed for the longest losing streak in 17 years as a gauge of companies outside Japan fell more than 10 percent from a high last month. Meanwhile, European shares edged lower on Tuesday, pressured by concerns that the era of plentiful monetary stimulus is coming to an end after the Bank of Japan decided against unveiling fresh measures overnight.

Closer home, benchmark equity indices which rebounded from day’s low in afternoon deals, witnessed ferocious selling pressure in the wee hours of trade again slipped near day’s low level by the end of the trade. Amid across the board selling pressure, stocks from Consumer Durable, Metal and Realty counters were the worst hit during the session. Losses in Metal counters were led by Jindal Steel stocks which plummeted close to 16% on coal scam woes. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against Jindal Steel & Power over coal block allocation and is currently investigating alleged irregularities in the awarding of coal mining rights potentially worth billions of dollars to private companies. Additionally, Titan Industries and other gold stocks edged lower for second consecutive session on concerns about gold imports. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 670: 1691, while 125 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 297.34 points or 1.53% to settle at 19143.73.The index touched a high and a low of 19418.74 and 19121.18 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex pack, 5 stocks gained, while rest of 24 declined and one stock remain unchanged. (Provisional)

Broader indices concluded in red; BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 1.58% and 1.79% respectively. (Provisional) On the BSE Sectoral front, Consumer Durables down by 7.48%, Metal down by 4.06%, Realty down by 3.65%, Bankex down by 2.30% and Power down by 2.05%, were the top losers, while there were no gainers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 1.90%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.83%, Wipro up by 0.69%, Gail India up by 0.39% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.05%, while, Jindal Steel down by 15.18%, Hindalco Industries down by 5.97%, Tata Power down by 5.87%, ONGC down by 3.91% and ICICI Bank down by 3.75% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, buoyed by improved spending behaviour and easing inflation, Indian consumers' confidence level rose in the month of May as against the same month last year. The BluFin's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), assessing the pulse of urban Indian consumers with regard to the economy, spending behaviour and employment, rose to 41.4 points in May, an increase of 3.4 points from January’13.

The index reflects pessimism at below 50 score and optimism above that and these two key components indicate improvement in the consumer sentiment. Further, a sub index of CCI, which rates inflation sentiment, rose from 23.9 points in January to 26.8 points in May, while the spending sentiment improved from 28.3 points to 30.5 points in the same period. However, employment sentiment declined to 50.2 points in May from 51.4 points in January. While, the score itself is encouraging as it is above the benchmark level of 50.

Further, BluFin noted that consumers were still pessimistic about the economy's prospects as CCI sub-index which measures future expectations, was at 40 points. In terms of region, consumers from North India, who are most sensitive to economic vagaries are showing increased propensity to spend as the consumer confidence in North India registered a rise of about two points to 39 points in May, after a steady decline since January 2013.    

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility gained 7.62% at 19.49 from its previous close of 18.11 on Monday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty lost 91.35 points or 1.55% to settle at 5,786.65. The index touched high and low of 5,868.05 and 5,780.35 respectively. 11 stocks advanced against 39 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Ambuja Cements up by 1.85%, Cipla up by 1.84%, Bajaj-Auto up by 1.01%, Gail up by 0.61% and Ranbaxy was up by 0.57%. On the other hand, Jindal Steel down by 15.25%, Hindalco Industries down by 6.31%, Tata Power down by 6.10%, DLF down by 4.23% and ONGC down by 4.02% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 was down by 1.67%, Germany’s DAX was down by 1.43% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 edged lower by 1.37%.