Post session - Quick review

Prolonging the southbound trajectory for second consecutive session, Indian equity markets were seen under the weather again for the same reason - sharp depreciation in Rupee. Indian currency rash dive to 56 per dollar despite slew of rescue efforts initiated by the Reserve Bank of India in the past few days, including latest Rs 12,000 crore worth of bond buying plan, mainly weighed on investors’ sentiments, leading to their resistance for risky asset class such as equities. After dilly-dallying for the entire trading session bourses realigned in the second half, still ending in the favour of red. In a session full of volatility, 30 scrip sensitive index, Sensex, of BSE sank over 50 points to shut shop below the  crucial 16000 bastion, while 50 share index, Nifty, on NSE give up over 15 points to conclude sub 4900 level. Meanwhile, the broader indices, incurred losses in greater proportion than the front line indices.

Beside home concerns, sinister global design also kept investor’s off the bay.  Nagging concerns of a messy Greek exit from the euro zone mainly derailed the performance of Asian counterparts and European shares. Asian shares were also weighed by standstill policy of Bank of Japan, which on Wednesday dropped a pledge to purse 'powerful' easing as it left its key interest rate unchanged at near zero levels. In Europe, investors continued to hold bearish bets on due to prevailing caution ahead of an EU meeting, which is expected to discuss ways to shore up Europe’s economy.

Political fiasco over ‘Indian Rupee’ put up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of misrule, also spurred pessimism, as this added to the bunch of negative’s viz, widening fiscal and current account deficits, policy paralysis, stubborn inflation and wavering global growth. On the other hand, BHEL’s Q4 numbers came in of little relief. Power equipment manufacturer BHEL reported 20.7% jump in net profit at Rs 3,379 crore in the Jaunuary-March quarter against Rs 2,800 crore in the year ago period. A higher other income component of Rs 398 crore against Rs 368 crore (Y-o-Y) helped the bottom line. The stock accumulated slender gains.

On the BSE sectoral front, although selling pressure was witnessed across the board, but stocks from Consumer Durable, Capital Goods and Realty counters were the one to feel maximum heat, closely followed by high beta Metal and Auto. Auto stocks lost steam on ‘fuel hike’ talks, which piled on to the worries about a sector facing uncertainty about future sales and rising raw material costs because of the falling rupee. On the flip side, Auto stocks loss was PSU’s gains as OMCs rallied on buzz of petrol price hike, as these companies on an average are losing about Rs 8 per litre on petrol. Additionally, Rupee’s depreciation became a matter of cheer for Inflation Technology stocks, as the software exporter derive major chunk of their revenues from export. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1094: 1616 while 114 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex lost 78.31 points or 0.49% and settled at 15,948.10.The index touched a high and a low of 16,002.03 and 15,847.03 respectively. Only 7 stocks advanced against 23 declining ones on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index lost 0.41% while Small-cap index was down by 0.58%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Information Technology up by 0.16%, HC up by 0.15 however Consumer Durables down 2.08%, CG down 0.89, Realty down 0.86%, Metal down 0.72%, and Auto down 0.68%, were the top losers. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up 3.42%, Wipro up 1.15%, Mahindra & Mahindra up 1.13%  Hindustan Unilever up 0.85%, and SBI up 0.80%  While, Bharti Airtel down by 4.74%, Jindal Steel down by 2.05%, Tata Power down 2.05% Sterlite Industries down 1.77%,and Hero Moto down by 1.76% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, Government’s subsidy outflow in 2011-12 was estimated to be Rs 216,297 crore as compared to Rs 57,125 crore in 2006-07. This represents an increase of Rs 1.59 lakh crore during the six year period. The increase has been on account of the rise in subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum.

Food subsidy bill that stood at Rs 24,014 crore in 2006-07 increased to Rs 72,823 crore in 2011-12. Fertiliser subsidy was up to Rs 67,199 crore from the earlier Rs 26,222 crore during the six year period.

Petroleum subsidy grew to a whopping Rs 68,481 crore in 2011-12, from a comparatively small Rs 2,699 crore in 2006-07, while other subsidies payout stood at Rs 7,794 crore in FY’12 from Rs 4,190 crore in FY’07.

India VIX, a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility gained 11.23% at 27.13 from its previous close of 24.39 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty lost 24.85 points or 0.51% to settle at 4,835.65. The index touched high and low of 4,853.75 and 4,803.95 respectively.15 stocks advanced against 35 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were GAIL up 3.54%, Ranabxy up by 1.73%, IDFC up 1.39%, M&M up by 1.34%, and DRReddy up by 1.24%. (Provisional)

On the other hand Bharti Airtel down by 4.68%, Kotak Bank down by 3.91%, Sesa Goa down by 3.78% , Bank of Baroda down 2.17% , Tata Power down by 2.10%, and were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets too were trading in red, with France's CAC 40 down 1.91%, Germany's DAX down by 1.79% and Britain’s FTSE 100 down 1.91%.