Markets remain weak in late noon weighed by feeble start of European stocks

Markets continue to trade subdued in the late noon session lacking any positive trigger to bring back the indices in green.The weakness in the global peers have mostly weighed on the sentiments and the metal index was under pressure since morning, after the preliminary report of decline in Chinese Purchasing Managers’ Index to 48.3 in February compared with January’s final figure of 49.5. The rupee has trimmed its losses against the American currency but was still lower, adding further pressure to the markets. The weak start of the European markets too was weighing on the sentiments. Traders have even overlooked the report of HSBC that foreign investors have been broad buyers of Indian shares in the October-December quarter, with increases in foreign institutional investments (FIIs) in about 75 percent of the BSE 200 companies. Back on street, while, IT Tech, Metal and Oil & gas were suffering profit booking, banking was the major laggard led by decline in ICICI and some other private sector banks. SBI too was lower although the country’s largest lender is finalising a plan to improve profitability by tightening the belt on asset quality and boosting its fee income stream. On the other hand realty power and consumer durables were still enticing buyers interest.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20611.40, down by 111.57 points or 0.54% after trading in a range of 20662.66 and 20577.72. There were just 6 stocks advancing against 24 declining ones on the index.

The broader indices were slightly in better position than the benchmarks, trading flat; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.10%, while Small cap index was down by 0.08%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 0.51%, Consumer Durables up by 0.23% and Healthcare up by 0.20%. While, Bankex down by 1.47%, Metal down by 0.86%, Oil & Gas down by 0.55%, Teck down by 0.41%, IT down by 0.35% and Auto down by 0.25% were the top losing indices on the BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto up by 1.87%, Dr Reddy’s up by 1.39%, Tata Power up by 0.77%, BHEL up by 0.27% and TCS up by 0.21%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 2.06%, Tata Steel down by 1.88%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.83%, SBI down by 1.44% and Coal India down by 1.08% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to un-complicate Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy terms, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had set up an Inter Ministerial Group (IMG) headed by the Industry Secretary. The group headed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Saurabh Chandra, is due to hold its first meeting on Thursday.

The Prime Minister's Office had in the last month constituted the IMG to further simplify the language or structure in the text of the consolidated FDI policy. Besides the DIPP, officials from the finance and other ministries would be part of the IMG.

The DIPP is scheduled to release the seventh edition of its consolidated FDI policy document on March 31, which would incorporate changes made over the past year. The sixth edition was issued in April 2013.

PMO decided to simplify the policy terms for FDI for investors, who otherwise would have to go through various press noted issued by the industry department and the RBI’s regulations to understand the policy. This development comes right after the government last year relaxed FDI norms in a dozen sectors, including telecom, defence, PSU oil refineries, commodity bourses, power exchanges and stock exchanges.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,114.10, down by 38.65 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 6,129.10 and 6,105.50. There were 12 stocks advancing against 38 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associates up by 5.34%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.09%, Dr Reddy up by 1.30%, Tata Power up by 1.03% and Powergrid up by 0.63%. On the flip side, Bank of Baroda down by 3.45%, ICICI Bank down by 2.05%, Kotak Bank down by 2.03%, PNB down by 1.95% and IDFC down by 1.91% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices ended in red. Shanghai Composite was down by 0.18%, Hang Seng slumped by 1.19%, Jakarta Composite was lower by 0.09%, KLSE Composite declined 0.23%, Nikkei 225 plunged by 2.15%, Straits Times slipped by 0.06%, Seoul Composite lost 0.64% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.61%.

The European markets have made a weak start; France’s CAC 40 was down by 1.00%, Germany’s DAX was up by 1.53% and UK’s FTSE 100 declined by 0.75%.