Benchmark pare losses; trade continues in red

Indian equities pared losses but continued to trade in red in the late afternoon session on account of selling in front line counters. The sentiments were on cautious mood from the early trade after US Federal Reserve stated that it will start scaling down its massive bond-buying stimulus by $10 billion a month, starting from January, 2014. Even, Finance Minister P Chidambaram's statement that India is better prepared to deal with the situation arising out of a cut in US bond purchases and markets have already factored in the impact of such a move even failed to add any cheer on the street. Traders were seen piling positions in IT, TECK and Health Care stocks while selling was witnessed in Bankex, Capital Goods and PSU sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Strides Arcolab dropped due to ex-date for dividend payout of Rs 500 a piece. The pharmaceutical firm on December 10 approved dividend of Rs 500 apiece that will be paid on or after December 27, 2013. It fixed December 20 as the record date for determining the eligibility of shareholders for payment of special dividend. Hectic activity was witnessed in Power Grid Corporation of India as its shares issued through follow-on public offer got listed on bourses.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in green, while the European markets were trading on optimistic note.  Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 6,200 and 20,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1018:1150 while 169 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20743.36, down by 116.50 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 21017.45 and 20646.03. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices continued to trade on a mixed note; the BSE Mid was up 0.01% and Small cap indexes were trading down by 0.03%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.95%, TECK up by 1.40%, Health Care up 1.21% and Metal up by 0.78%. While, Bankex was down by 2.25% Capital Goods was down by 1.65%, PSU was down by 1.22%, Consumer Durables was down by 0.84% and Oil & Gas was down by 0.75% were the top losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 2.76%, SSTL up by 2.61%, Jindal Steel up by 2.29%, Sun Pharma up by 2.08% and Hindalco Industries up 1.74%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.74%, ICICI Bank down by 2.65%, L&T down by 2.56%, HDFC down by 2.34% and HDFC Bank down 2.17%.

Meanwhile, besides committing more steps to boost economy, Finance Minister highlighted that the initiatives taken by the government in the past one year are expected to fetch result as this would do its bit to boost investment and revive the sagging growth. In an attempt to shore-up investors’ confidence after US Federal Reserve announced to trim down its aggressive bond-buying program by $10 billion a month, the Finance Minister reiterated  that the government was committed to take all necessary steps to revive growth, boost investment, create conducive business environment, improving efficiency and depth of the markets, wider participation of investors and strengthening of the regulatory and institutional framework to channelize greater investments and to achieve potential growth of the Indian economy.

Listing out the initiatives taken by the government in the past one year to boost growth, Finance Minister underscored that the economy is headed towards gradual recovery and growth stabilization, after slipping to a decade’s low level of 5% in 2012-13. He highlighted that the government in consultation with RBI and SEBI made concerted efforts and instituted several measures to attract off-shore portfolio investment and improve investors' appetite.

Further, on account of policies to promote inclusive growth, FM unveiled that the proportion of people living below the poverty line declined from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 21.9% in 2011-12 and also added that this decline, had been at a much faster rate than the previous decades. Additionally, he underscored that Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI), in order to boost investment, de-bottlenecked 200 projects, while Project Monitoring Group (PMG) had resolved 93 projects with total estimated cost of Rs 3.53 lakh crore.

Lastly, he also brought to light the initiatives, like settling up of Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDF), authorising PSUs to issue tax-free bonds, enhancement of the FII limits, among others to boost investment and growth.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,181.05, down by 36.10 points or 0.58% after trading in a range of 6,263.75 and 6,150.70. There were 14 stocks advancing against 35 declining ones while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HCL Tech up by 3.89%, Wipro up by 2.88%, SSLT up by 2.49%, Ranbaxy Laboratories up by 2.45% and Lupin up by 2.38%. On the flip side, Kotak Bank down by 3.36%, ICICI Bank down by 2.70%, NMDC down by 2.67%, ONGC down by 2.67% and L&T down by 2.46% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were mostly in green; Jakarta Composite was up 0.45%, Nikkei 225 was up 1.74%, Seoul Composite was up 0.05%, Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.70% and Straits Times was up buy 0.08%. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down 0.95%, Hang Seng was down 1.10% and KLSE Composite was down 0.02%.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 1.61%, Germany’s DAX added 1.60% and UK’s FTSE 100 gained 1.09%.