Feeble global cues drag benchmarks lower in early deals

Pressurized by feeble global cues, Indian equity benchmarks are trading lower in early deals on Wednesday. The US markets suffered sharp plunge overnight on worries about the impact of the ongoing government shutdown. Moreover, Asian markets too exhibited sluggish trade in early deals as investors remained concerned on IMF warning on the global economy and the continuing U.S. government shutdown with news that Federal Reserve vice chair Janet Yellen will be nominated to head the U.S. central bank.

Back home, weakness in Indian rupee against dollar, too hurt the sentiments. The Indian rupee was trading at 62.15 per dollar as compared to previous day’s close of Rs 61.79 per dollar. Sentiments remained dampened after International Monetary Fund (IMF) further cut India’s current fiscal growth projection to 3.8% from 5.6% as projected in July and 5.7% as expected in April. It has said that growth in India has slowed down more than anticipated and the country must maintain fiscal and monetary credibility in order to prevent capital outflows.

On the sectoral front, realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by healthcare and auto, while banking, pubic sector undertaking and consumer durables remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 752 shares on the gaining side against 445 shares on the losing side while 56 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19918.20; about 65 points lower compared to its previous closing of 19983.61, and has touched a high and a low of 19944.30 and 19826.96 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19910.16, down by 73.45 points or 0.37%. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 60.02% stocks advancing against 35.36% declines. The broader indices, the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 0.35% and 0.37% respectively. 

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 0.92%, Health Care up by 0.69%, Auto up by 0.18%, FMCG up by 0.06% and Capital Goods up by 0.05%, while Bankex down by 0.99%, PSU down by 0.51%, Consumer Durables down by 0.47%, Metal down by 0.38% and IT down by 0.24% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.56%, Tata Motors up by 1.21%, Jindal Steel up by 0.90%, Tata Steel up by 0.37% and L&T up by 0.22%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank was down by 2.48%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.39%, Coal India was down by 1.23%, NTPC was down by 1.22% and SBI was down by 1.16% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, domestic car sales have improved for the first time this fiscal with the industry selling 1.56 lakh cars during September, up by 0.73% from a year earlier 1.54 lakh. However, the uptick remained limited on account of high interest rates and fuel costs.

Meanwhile, sales of Two-wheeler sales also improved by 18.39% on year-on-year basis to 12.65 lakh units during the month compared with 10.69 lakh units in September 2012, according to the data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). However, total sales of commercial vehicles were lowest in the last 38 months, i.e, down by 26.95% to 51,680 units from 70,746 units in the year-ago period.

Nevertheless, total sale of vehicles across categories registered a growth of 11.64 per cent to 15,80,254 units in September 2013 as against 14,15,526 units in the same month of 2012. Going further, Automakers expect some recovery on cards as demand picks up during the key festive months between September and December, considered to be auspicious by Indians for making big-ticket purchases.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,893.25; about 35 point lower as compared to its previous closing of 5,928.40, and has touched a high and a low of 5,915.75 and 5,877.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,910.95, down by 17.45 points or 0.29 %. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 2.77%, Lupin up by 1.95%, Sun Pharmaceuticals up by 1.48%, Tata Motors up by 1.36% and DLF up by 1.30%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 2.55%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.49%, M&M down by 1.35%, NTPC down by 1.32% and ACC down by 1.29% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite slipped 1.66 points or 0.08% to 2,196.54, Hang Seng declined 131.71 points or 0.57% to 23,047.14, KLSE Composite slipped 5.32 points or 0.30% to 1,772.18, Taiwan Weighted was down by 18.54 points or 0.22% to 8,357.11.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 0.35 points or 0.01% to 4,432.86, Nikkei 225 surged 81.85 points or 0.59% to 13,976.46 and Straits Times was up by 13.08 points or 0.42% to 3,159.58.

South Korean markets remained shut for the trade today.