Equity markets slip to day’s low on rampant selling pressure

There is no respite for Indian equity markets, which grinding lower after a weak start have scaled fresh low for the day on rampant selling pressure. Prevailing caution ahead of RBI’s third quarter monetary policy review amidst negative regional counterparts, have mainly dampened sentiments. Languishing near day’s low, while the Sensex has slipped below the crucial 20,800 psychological level; Nifty is barely managing to hold above the crucial 6,150 bastion, with sharp cut of over one and a half percent. Broader indices, underperforming larger peers are down and out with a cut of over 2%.

On the global front, all the emerging markets, including Asia pacific region, remained under pressure, with the US Federal Reserve poised to continue tapering stimulus and tighter credit conditions in China raising fears of a sharper economic slowdown.

Closer home, amidst across the board selling pressure, none of the sectoral indices were spared in green. On the flip side, Realty, Banking and Metal counters were the worst performers of the session. In other sector specific activities, Telecom stocks, such as Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel recovered some ground after Telecom EGoM capped new spectrum usage fee at 5%. Once implemented, Bharti and Vodafone's effective SUC is likely to fall to 5 percent from 8 percent. For 4G players, annual spectrum fee of 1 percent remains unchanged. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1711:521; while 98 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20788.18, down by 345.38 points or 1.63% after trading in a range of 20,899.03 and 20773.75. Only 1 stock was advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices too were lost in the sea of red; the BSE Mid cap and Smallcap indices plunged by 2.13% and 2.04% respectively.

No sectoral index on BSE was spared in green.The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty down by 4.33%, Bankex down by 3.56%, Metal down by 2.92%, Auto down by 2.75%, and Capital Goods down by 2.56%.

Sun Pharma up by 0.63% was the lone gainer among 30 share index. On the flip side, ICICI bank down by 4.33% Tata Steel and Tata Motors down by 4.05%, Maruti Suzuki down by 3.53% and HDFC Bank down by 3.26%.

Meanwhile, amid rising concerns over the prevailing economic slowdown, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has attributed the decline in India's growth rate mainly to domestic factors and expressed the need for the government to take quick decisions to boost the economic growth.

Highlighting that the government cannot blame the global factors entirely for the country's flat growth, Ahluwalia asserted that the one third of prevailing economic downturn could be attributed to global factors and two-thirds to domestic factors. In the previous fiscal, India's economy’s growth slowed down to a decade low of 5 percent owing to the global slowdown as well as domestic factors such as high inflation and interest rates. The growth is estimated to remain around the same level in current fiscal.

By adding further, Ahluwalia said that India could potentially sustain a growth rate of 7 percent in future. Referring to growth in infrastructure sector, he asserted that major development in country’s infrastructure would be taken place after India's general elections in May. The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,159.00, down by 107.75 points or 1.72% after trading in a range of 6,188.55 and 6,156.85. There were only 4 stocks advancing against 46 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 0.56%, HCL Tech up by 0.51%, Ultratech Cement up by 0.26% and Wipro up by 0.02%. On the flip side, JP Associates down by 6.64%, DLF down by 5.49%, Ranbaxy down by 5.22%, Punjab National Bank down by 4.55% and IndusInd Bank down by 4.54% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in red; Seoul Composite down by 1.56%, Nikkei 225 down by 2.51%, Hang Seng down by 2.01%, KLSE Composite down by 0.96%, Straits Times down by 1.29%, Jakarta Composite down by 2.82%, Shanghai Composite down by 1.02% and Taiwan Weighted down by 1.58%.