Carnage continues on D-street in early deals

Extending their previous session’s slaughter, Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-down opening and are trading with a cut of over one and a half percent pressurized by feeble global cues coupled by weakness in rupee. The rupee fell below the 68 per dollar mark in morning trade as uncertainty over a possible US-led military strike against Syria knocked down Asian equity markets and currencies, also pushing the domestic benchmark bond yield to 9%. The partially convertible rupee was trading at a record low of 68.02 per dollar, sharply below its close of 66.24/25 on Tuesday. Sentiments also remained dampened after share prices of three public sector oil marketing companies BPCL, HPCL and IOC plunged as the international crude prices have surged on escalating geo-political tension, though, there is buzz that diesel prices may be increased by at least Rs 3 a litre after the monsoon session of Parliament ends next week.

Global cues too remained choppy with the US markets ending with a sharp plunge in last session, while all the Asian Equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time on concern the US will take military action against Syria. Moreover, the sentiments across the region also got clobbered out of shape amid worries that the US may pullback on aggressive monetary stimulus that had benefited many of these emerging markets until just a few weeks ago. Sentiments also remained down-beat after Emerging market currencies have been hit hard, with Indonesian rupiah and Thai baht among others at multi-year lows.

Back home, selling was both brutal and wide based as, barring software and technology, none of sectoral indices on BSE were spared. Oil and gas and banking counters remained the top losers, while public sector undertaking, realty, fast moving consumer goods and capital goods segments too fell significantly during the early session. The broader indices too got clobbered out of shape, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 247 shares on the gaining side against 893 shares on the losing side while 38 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17851.44; about 116 points lower compared to its previous closing of 17968.08, and has touched a high and a low of 17851.44 and 17648.65 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17649.25, down by 318.83 points or 1.77%. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a weak start with 20.97% stocks advancing against 75.81% declines. The broader indices too were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were down by 1.86% and 1.12% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 2.29% and Teck up by 1.08%, while Oil & Gas down by 3.96%, Bankex down by 3.44%, PSU down by 3.31%, Realty down by 3.03% and FMCG down by 2.54% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 4.04%, Wipro up by 2.01%, Infosys up by 1.86%, Tata Motors up by 1.10% and Dr Reddys Lab up by 0.87%. On the flip side, ONGC was down by 7.95%, HDFC was down by 5.47%, BHEL was down by 5.40%, ICICI Bank was down by 4.67% and RIL was down by 3.83% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to boost the infrastructure development in the country and to enhance business sentiment in a slowing economy, the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has set a 60- day deadline for ministries to clear 36 mega infrastructure projects including 28 power plants that were stuck due to delay in sanctions.

The government had set up the CCI, to clear the bottlenecks holding back big infrastructure projects. Recently, the CCI cleared the proposal of setting up two hydro power projects in Arunachal Pradesh. The panel has so far cleared 171 projects worth Rs 1.69 lakh crore.

Further, in order to speed up the implementation of infrastructure projects, the government has also set up special cell, special project monitoring group, which is meant to supplement CCI's efforts and has been tasked with monitoring the progress of projects cleared earlier by CCI.

Further, a web-based information system has also been put in place wherein firms can provide details of their project as well as the issues that are restraining smooth implementation of projects. Meanwhile, for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the government has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,233.45; about 54 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 5,287.45, and has touched a high and a low of 5,236.05 and 5,180.00 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,180.25, down by 107.20 points or 2.03 %. There were 9 stocks advancing against 40 declines, while one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Cairn up by 4.62%, TCS up by 4.25%, Infosys up by 1.90%, Ranbaxy up by 1.06% and Tata Motors up by 1.03%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 9.34%, ONGC down by 7.89%, Axis Bank down by 6.51%, Ambuja Cements down by 5.71% and BHEL down by 5.62% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite dipped 5.05 points or 0.24% to 2,098.52, Hang Seng declined 380.49 points or 1.74% to 21,494.28, Jakarta Composite tumbled 102.26 points or 2.58% to 3,865.58, KLSE Composite shed 24.68 points or 1.45% to 1,676.56, Nikkei 225 crumbled 303.34 points or 2.24% to 13,239.03, Straits Times decreased 37.98 points or 1.25% to 2,996.04, Seoul Composite contracted 11.81 points or 0.63% to 1,874.03 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 11.53 points or 0.15% to 7,809.31.