Benchmarks trade lower ahead of the outcome of Fed meet

Continuing their last session’s southward journey, Indian equity indices made a negative start as investors remained cautious ahead of outcome of the Federal Reserve policy meeting announcement due later today. Global cues remained mixed with US stocks extending gains overnight on expectations that the Fed would tone down its stance which suggested that it would reduce its monetary stimulus measures sooner-than-expected. Though, Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time.

Back home, some pressure also came in from selling in power and FMCG sectors as the heavy rains may affect the paddy crop in North India, while in the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh it is disrupting electricity generation at hydropower projects. Sentiments also got dampened with foreign institutional investors (FIIs) selling shares worth a net Rs 597.37 crore on June 18, 2013. Bucking the trend, Aviation stocks rallied with Jet Air India, Spicejet and Global Vectra edged higher in early deals on reports that a government panel has recommended allowing complete foreign ownership of aviation companies.

On the sectoral front, consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by healthcare and metal, while public sector undertaking, oil and gas and software remained the top losers on the BSE. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 643 shares on the gaining side against 526 shares on the losing side while 83 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19224.09, flat compared to its previous closing of 19223.28, and has touched a high and a low of 19234.48 and 19121.92 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19137.72, down by 85.56 points or 0.45%. There were 9 stocks advancing against 20 declines, while one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 51.36% stocks advancing against 42.01% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices up by 0.36% and 0.25% respectively. 

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 0.48%, Metal up by 0.24%, Health Care up by 0.10% and Realty up by 0.05%, while PSU down by 0.75%, Oil & Gas down by 0.67%, IT down by 0.47%, Power down by 0.45% and Auto down by 0.43% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 2.46%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.89%, Gail India up by 1.07%, BHEL up by 0.75% and Sterlite Industries up by 0.48%.

On the flip side, NTPC was down by 2.04%, ONGC was down by 1.51%, Coal India was down by 1.17%, TCS was down by 0.98% and Tata Motors was down by 0.94% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, giving a big relief to the patients, the drug pricing regulator, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) after fixing the prices of 151 formulation packs has said that it will fix ceiling prices of over 300 medicines by the end of June. The implementation of new drug policy is likely to reduce prices of many anti-cancer and anti-infective drugs by 50-80%.

The prices of 348 essential drugs, which are listed in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) are set to be regulated under this order, which includes 237 formulations, the ceiling prices of those are already fixed. Earlier there were only 74 bulk drugs being regulated under Drug Prices Control Order 1995.

All the strengths and dosages specified in NLEM as per new policy will be under price policy. The ceiling price, as per the pharmaceutical pricing policy is the simple average of the prices of all brands of that drug that have a market share of at least 1 per cent. The 86 drugs whose price were fixed within the last one year will only be readjusted on the basis of the wholesale price index (WPI) one year from their date of notification.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,805.75; about 8 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,813.60, and has touched a high and a low of 5,809.25 and 5,784.30 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,789.75, down by 23.85 points or 0.41%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 31 declines, while one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 2.15%, IDFC up by 2.07%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.71%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 1.08% and GAIL up by 1.07%.

On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.94%, ONGC down by 1.46%, BPCL down by 1.43%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.40% and Coal India down by 1.27% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite declined 28.65 points or 1.33% to 2,130.65, Hang Seng dropped 258.99 points or 1.22% to 20,966.89, Jakarta Composite slipped 3.02 points or 0.06% to 4,837.44, Straits Times contracted 18.80 points or 0.58% to 3,210.75 and KOSPI Composite was down by 13.36 points or 0.70% to 1,887.26.

On the flip side, KLSE Composite rose 0.76 points or 0.04% to 1,774.81, Nikkei 225 surged 132.27 points or 1.02% to 13,139.55 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 20.44 points or 0.26% to 8,031.46.