Markets pare losses; Nifty at striking distance of 5950 mark

Benchmarks have pared some losses with availability of fundamentally strong stocks at lower levels driving bargain buyers to the markets. Nevertheless, the mood remains largely downbeat amidst mixed global cues, after Reserve Bank hiked short term borrowing rates overnight to rescue the falling rupee. Trading off day’s lows, benchmark indexes, Sensex and Nifty, were trading at striking distance of 19,800 and 5950 levels respectively. Meanwhile, in line with larger peers, broader indices too have pared some losses. On the global front, European stocks opened steady on Tuesday, consolidating after a sharp upward move over the last three weeks, with traders looking to closely watch German sentiment data and earnings for direction. Closer home, stocks from Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Oil & Gas and Information Technology space were restricting the downside of the bourses, while stocks from Realty, Bankex and Capital Goods counters were largely endorsing the underlying weakness at D-street. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1301:684; while 109 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19791.43, down by 243.05 points or 1.21% after trading in a range of 19811.47 and 19649.58. There were 9 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index, while 1 share remained unchanged.

The broader indices pared some losses; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 1.21% and 0.82% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, FMCG up by 0.97%, Oil & Gas up by 0.36%, IT up by 0.14%, TECK up by 0.13%, while Realty down by 5.32%, Bankex down by 4.62%, Capital Goods down by 2.29%, Metal down by 1.96% and Auto down by 1.21% were the top losers on the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 2.37%, ITC up by 1.31%,  Sun Pharma up by 1.23%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.01% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.86%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank was down by 5.55%, SBI was down by 4.39%, HDFC was down by 4.04%, L&T was down by 3.46% and Sterlite Industries was down by 3.34% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, amidst widening Current Account deficit (CAD) and depreciating Rupee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has expressed his hopes that Indian economy will grow at 6% or slightly more for the current fiscal year to March 2014, which is more of less in line with Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC)’s ballpark figure of 6.4%.

The Finance Minister besides underscoring number of measures taken by the government for arresting Rupee’s fall, also highlighted the measures taken on the economy front in the last few months, including improving exports and coal and gas production. He highlighted that government has significantly hiked its investment in the public sector enterprise by investing Rs 1.15 lakh crore in PSUs in 2012-13. Chidambaram added that another round of telecom spectrum auction will be held shortly.

Chidambaram also expressed his hopes of parliament approving the real estate regulator and land acquisition bills in the monsoon session of Parliament, which is due to begin in the first week of August

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,945.10, down by 85.70 points or 1.42% after trading in a range of 5,954.00 and 5,910.95. There were 14 stocks advancing against 36 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were ONGC up by 2.30%, BPCL up by 1.86%, Ambuja Cements up by 1.57%, ITC up by 1.22% and Sun Pharmaceuticals up by 1.21%,. On the flip side, DLF down by 7.46%,  IDFC down by 7.18%, IndusInd Bank down by 6.63%, JP Associates down by 6.51% and ICICI Bank down by 5.61% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Straits Times slipped 0.30%, KLSE Composite down by 0.03% and Seoul Composite decreased 0.47%. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite up by 0.10%, Hang Seng up 0.26%, Jakarta Composite rose 0.45%, Nikkei 225 was up by 0.64% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.07%.

European Markets got off to a mixed start; with CAC 40 declining by 0.27%, FTSE 100 adding 0.23% and DAX rising by 0.01%.