Markets trading near day’s low amid volatility

Indian equity markets extended early losses and were trading near the lowest point in the late morning session on Thursday amid volatility ahead of July expiry today. Investors mostly stayed away from taking any position, choosing to wait for fresh signals. Markets movements were mostly driven by quarterly results, while trading at a few front line counters was a bit subdued. The BSE benchmark Sensex, declined to around 19996.49, while Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange fell by 30 points at 5,960.40. In the currency market, rupee after opening lower has emerged as an outperformer in the emerging markets basket, on good dollar selling by exporters. Indian bonds have also picked up steam after a flat start looking at the strength in the rupee. On the sectoral front, FMCG, consumer durables, power, metal and capital goods stocks were trading weak. Healthcare, realty and information technology stocks were also weak, while oil, bank and automobile stocks were finding some support.

On the global front, Asian stocks slipped from seven-week highs on Thursday after Wall Street buckled under profit-taking pressure and as investors retreated to the sidelines with the earnings season heating up. Back home, the market breadth was favoring the negative trend; there were 675 shares on the losing side against 1116 shares on the gaining side, while 125 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,996.49, down by 94.19 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 20110.81 and 19910.08. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.60% and Small cap index lost 0.46%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 0.45%, Oil & Gas up by 0.24% and Bankex up by 0.01%, while FMCG down by 2.28%, Power down by 1.07%, Metal down by 1.02%, Capital Goods down by 1.02% and Realty down by 0.91% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 4.00%, M&M up by 1.47%, HDFC up by 1.27%, ONGC up by 1.26% and Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.05%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 3.28%, BHEL was down by 3.19%, Wipro was down by 3.16%, ITC was down by 2.83% and Sterlite Industries was down by 2.50% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a bid to review the stalled projects in the eastern region which are worth Rs 31,000 crore and to find a solution on the same, Finance Minister P Chidambaram held a meeting on July 24, 2013 with bankers and promoters of the concerned companies for two hours. FM discussed the issue with concerned persons to gather information and tried to suggest measures for the projects.

Most of the stalled projects are in steel and power from Jharkhand and Orissa, while two road projects are from West Bengal valued at Rs 800 crore. Although bankers already have an exposure of Rs 22000-23000 crore in these projects, FM suggested that bank consortiums should clear the additional funding proposals in case the majority agreed.

P Chidambaram urged the relevant banks to be rational toward the stalled projects instead of ignoring them. For the eastern region, additional estimated fund requirement would be Rs 8,000 crore including promoter's contribution for these stalled projects.

The major obstacle in front of stalled the projects were land and raw material linkages. Further, the Centre had appointed a committee to identify and help re-start 215 large projects across the country valued at over Rs 7 lakh crore which were stalled for years.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,960.40 down by 30.40 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 5,990.65 and 5,958.30. There were 23 stocks advancing against 27 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hero MotoCorp up by 4.23%, BPCL up by 1.91%, ONGC up by 1.30%, IDFC up by 1.23% and M&M up by 1.21%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cements down by 11.06%, JP Associate down by 9.21%, ACC down by 4.28%, BHEL down by 3.40% and Hindustan Unilever down by 3.37% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite dipped 0.12%, Hang Seng declined 0.34%, Jakarta Composite contracted 0.96%, Nikkei 225 decreased 1.14%, Straits Times shed 0.73%, Seoul Composite was down by 0.13% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.40%.

On the flip side, KLSE Composite rose 0.01%.