Weakness persist in markets amid further fall in rupee

Indian equity markets after opening lower continued to languish in the red and currently trading at day’s low following weak Asian peers. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty extended losses due to further fall in rupee and sustained selling at several blue chip counters. Indian rupee hits a new record low against American currency on Wednesday due to lack of capital inflows, as investors were cautious about the growth story of Indian economy. On sectoral front all sectors were trading in red. Consumer durables, automobile, realty, power and metal stocks were leading the losers. On the other hand, Tata Power plunged more than 5% on disappointing results. On the global front, Asian shares were too trading in red. Back home, the market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 868 shares on the gaining side against 1,395 shares on the losing side while 129 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading lower by 139.43 points or 0.87% at 15,886.98. The index has touched a high and low of 15,995.14 and 15,880.56 respectively. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 declines on the index.

The broader indices too incurred losses; the BSE mid cap and small cap indices were trading lower by 0.64% and 0.48%.

Selling pressure was witnessed across the board as there was no gainer on the BSE sectoral space; however, the prominent losers were Consumer Durable down by 1.94%, Auto down by 1.34%, Power down by 1.12%, Realty down by 0.92% and Bankex down by 0.87%.

Few top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 2.69%, BHEL up by 0.86% and SBI up by 0.18%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 3.26%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.56% Hero MotoCorp down by 2.40%, Jindal Steel down by 1.94% and Sun Pharma down by 1.79% were the top losers on the Sensex.

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.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading lower by 48.10 points or 0.99% at 4,812.40. The index has touched a high and low of 4,848.10 and 4,811.15 respectively. There were 5 stocks advancing against 45 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were GAIL up by 2.90%, Ranbaxy up by 0.95%, BHEL up by 0.65%, IDFC up by 0.59% and SBI up by 0.07%.

On the flip side, Tata Power down by 3.37%, Kotak Bank down by 3.11%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.78%, Jindal Steel down by 2.35% and PNB down by 2.22% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite eased 0.73%, Hang Seng Index plummeted 1.46%, Jakarta Composite plunged 1.37%, KLSE Composite declined 0.39%, Nikkei 225 slumped 1.98%, Straits Times Index sank 1.13%, KOSPI Composite Index shrank 1.10% and Taiwan Weighted drifted lower by 1.75%.