Markets struggle in early deal lacking any supportive cue

The Indian markets after a soft start tailing there regional peers are struggling to break into green on Monday morning; though, there is no support from any corner and every upmove is being sold out, dragging the markets lower. Traders are a bit concerned with better than expected jobs data from US, which could lead to Fed taper its stimulus sooner than expected. Traders were also concerned about the weakness in rupee which once again breached $63 mark in early trade. There were some jitters on the street after the government put investments from Cyprus under tax lens. The Finance Ministry has named Cyprus as a notified jurisdictional area with a view to check tax evasion as it was not providing the information requested by tax authorities under exchange of information provisions of the double taxation avoidance pact. Back on street, Capital Goods, realty and banking were once again dragging the markets lower, while the IT and technology stocks were getting the advantage of rupee weakness. The broader indices too were not very confident and were ruling flat.

The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 751 shares on the gaining side against 562 shares on the losing side, while 50 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 20596.40; about 69 points lower compared to its previous closing of 20666.15, and has touched a high and a low of 20623.83 and 20482.41 respectively. The index is currently trading at 20558.02, down by 108.13 points or 0.52%. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 56.02% stocks advancing against 40.31% declines. The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap down by 0.24% and Small cap index was down by 0.06%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.05%, Teck up by 0.95% and Health Care up by 0.10%, while Bankex down by 1.74%, Capital Goods down by 1.72%, Realty down by 1.46%, Auto down by 1.26% and PSU down by 1.12% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 1.67%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.24%, Wipro up by 0.89%, RIL up by 0.57% and Infosys up by 0.55%. On the flip side, L&T was down by 2.13%, Tata Motors was down by 1.90%, Gail India was down by 1.78%, HDFC Bank was down by 1.61% and Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.60% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Telecom Commission (TC), major decision-making agency of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to recommend the reserve price for the 800 MHz band within 15 days so that the government could auction the 800-MHz spectrum along with the 1,800-MHz and 900-MHz bands. The Telecom Commission is of the view that keeping 800 MHz band spectrum unsold would result in lower revenues for government and it may be appropriate to put the spectrum to auction to allow telecom players to determine the appropriate technology solution using the liberalised spectrum. The government has planned to conduct the auction on January 8, 2014.

Earlier, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had rejected TRAI's recommendation of an extended GSM band, taking spectrum out of the existing 800-MHz (CDMA) band as CDMA operators, including Reliance Communications, Sistema Shyam, and Tata Teleservices currently use it, and the proposed extended GSM band would block their further roll out.

Meanwhile, Telecom Commission (TC) has also recommended raising reserve price for auction of pan-India mobile phone spectrum by 15% more than the price suggested by the TRAI in the 1,800 megahertz (MHz) and by 25% more in case of 900 MHz. Further, in order to enhance telecom geographical coverage, the Commission has also decided to modify the roll out obligation of telecom operators in a bid to ensure that all villages are connected. In India, around 50,000 more villages are yet to be covered by mobile operators.

The CNX Nifty opened at 6,110.40; about 30 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 6,140.75, and has touched a high and a low of 6,121.35 and 6,070.85 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,099.50, down by 41.25 points or 0.67%. There were 11 stocks advancing against 38 declines and one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Cairn up by 2.12%, HCL Tech up by 1.71%, TCS up by 1.68%, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories up by 0.91% and Wipro up by 0.87%. On the flip side, NMDC down by 3.22%, BPCL down by 3.17%, Axis Bank down by 2.76%, Ranbaxy down by 2.70% and Bank of Baroda down by 2.63% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite was down by 3.33 points or 0.16% to 2,102.79, Jakarta Composite was down by 30.95 points or 0.69% to 4,445.77, Seoul Composite was down by 0.57points or 0.03% to 1,984.30 and Taiwan Weighted lost 42.75 points or 0.52% to 8,186.84.

Hang Seng was up by 28.05 points or 0.12% to 22,772.44, KLSE Composite gained 0.64 points or 0.04% to 1,805.12, Nikkei 225 surged by 143.67 points or 1.02% to 14,230.47 and Straits Times added 6.19 points or 0.19% to 3,183.44.