Benchmarks continue lackluster trade in late morning

Benchmarks continue to trade in negative territory in late morning trade mainly buying witnessed in metal and capital goods shares. Investor’s  sentiments remained dampened after the Cabinet deferred the consideration of proposals to relax foreign direct investment norms in the housing sector and to reduce the FDI cap to 49 percent in critical areas of the pharma segment. However, investors are drawing some comfort from provisional data, which showed that FIIs once again turned net buyers in Indian equities, purchasing shares worth a net Rs. 837.80 crore yesterday. Loss on the down side remained capped as the rupee was trading marginally strong in morning trade due to dollar sale by banks. The rupee was trading at Rs 62.43 compared with previous close of Rs 62.50 per dollar.

Sluggish global cues too were dampening the sentiments with the US markets making a flat closing after a lackluster trade and traders digested the news of historic agreement regarding Iran’s controversial nuclear program as the trade progressed and remained concerned about unexpected drop in pending home sales. Moreover, Asian equity indices were exhibiting mixed at this point of time with investors mostly treading cautiously amid a lack of fresh triggers. Back home, traders were buying, Metal, Capital Goods and Realty while selling were seen in FMCG, IT and Teck on the BSE. The gold and jewellary stocks like Shree Ganesh Jewellery, Gitanjali Gems and PC Jewellers too edged lower as the Exports of gold jewellery from India fell 6.9 percent on month in October to $608.95 million.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 844:794. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,500 and 6,000 levels respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20533.78, down by 71.30 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 20604.27 and 20520.32. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 27% and Small cap index gained 0.15%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 0.77%, Capital Goods up by 0.48%, Realty up by 0.40%, Consumer Durables up by 0.31%, and Power up by 0.25%, while FMCG down by 0.69%, IT down by 0.52%, Teck down by 0.47%, Oil & Gas down by 0.29%, and Auto down by 0.23% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 3.47%, Hindalco Inds up by 2.49%, SSLT up by 1.95%, Gail India up by 1.07%, and Sun Pharma up by 0.97%. On the flip side, ITC was down by 1.50%, Tata Steel was down by 1.11%, Tata Motors was down by 1.04%, Dr Reddys Lab down by 0.97%, and TCS was down by 0.88%, were the top losers on the Sensex

Meanwhile, amid rising concerns over the strict infrastructure lending norms, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) widened the definition of infrastructure lending and also added new sub-sectors for the lending list including water & sanitation, transport, energy, communication, social and commercial infrastructure. The RBI in its notification has said that new sub-sectors will get classified as infrastructure for the purpose of lending by banks and select All India Term-Lending and Refinancing Institutions from the date of this circular.

RBI notification further said that hotels with a project cost of more than Rs 200 crore each and convention centres with project cost of more than Rs 300 crore each come under 'Social and Commercial Infrastructure' category for this kind of lending. The RBI has widened infrastructure-lending norms for sub-sectors as the government has recently written to central bank seeking changes in the rules of infrastructure financing in order to expedite the implementation of infrastructure development in the country.

The government has identified the development of infrastructure a most critical prerequisite for sustaining the present growth momentum of the economy. Meanwhile in order to expedite the implementation of infra projects, the government has been taking various measures. Recently, it has set up Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) to accord fast track clearances to large projects. Untill now, the CCI had cleared 209 projects worth Rs 3.84 lakh crore. 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 is currently trading at 6,094.35 down by 21.00 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 6,112.70 and 6,087.75. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stock declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BHEL up by 3.40%, Hindalco up by 2.71%, SSLT up by 1.95%, Sun Pharma up by 0.98%, and Gail up by 0.87%. On the flip side, ITC down by 1.58%, Cairn down by 1.25%, Tata Steel down by 1.17%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.15%, and Tata Motors down by 1.14% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 0.28 points or 0.01% to 2,186.40, Hang Seng increased 50.84 points or 0.21% to 23,735.29, KLSE Composite jumped 3.26 points or 0.18% to 1,801.23, Seoul Composite added 3.47 points or 0.17% to 2,019.45, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 74.10 points or 0.91% to 8,261.61.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite declined 38.60 points or 0.89% to 4,296.20, Nikkei 225 dropped 91.63 points or 0.59% to 15,527.50, and Straits Times was down by 0.37 points or 0.01% to 3,180.28.