Benchmarks make gap-down start; Infosys Q1 net disappoints

Prolonging their yesterday’s downfall, key benchmarks have made a gap-down opening with bourses breaching their crucial 17,300 (Sensex) and 5,300 (Nifty) levels on the back of disappointing results by IT bellwether Infosys and weak global cues. On the global front, Asian indices were down, tracking losses on Wall Street, after FOMC minutes showed lack of consensus on QE3. Wall Street was also jittery over the impact of economic slowdown on corporate earnings. Back home, shares of Infosys pummeled over 9 percent after the company’s Q1 net profit and revenues fell short of consensus estimates. The company has posted a rise of 33.25% in its net profit after exceptional item at Rs 2,204 crore for the quarter under review while; the total income of the company has increased by 27.98% at Rs 9,368 crore for Q1FY13. Meanwhile, traders are waiting for May IIP data, which is scheduled to be released in the later part of the day. On the sectoral front oil and gas remained the lone gainer on the BSE while, major part of the blow was absorbed by software, technology and realty stocks. Moreover, the broader indices too were struggling to get some traction and the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 542 shares on the gaining side against 1,025 shares on the losing side while 57 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,297.06; about 192 points lower compared to its previous closing of 17,489.14, and has touched a high and a low of 17,329.46 and 17,244.09 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,256.15 down by 232.99 points or 1.33%. There were 6 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a negative start with 33.37% stocks advancing against 63.12% declines. The broader indices too were trading in the red; the BSE mid cap and small cap indices declined 0.79% and 0.65% respectively.

The only gaining sectoral index on the BSE was Oil and Gas up by 0.21%. While, IT down by 5.35%, TECk down by 4.44%, Realty down by 1.66%, Power down by 1.18% and CD down by 1.07% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 0.45%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.34%, Cipla up by 0.29%, HUL up by 0.28% and RIL up by 0.21%.

On the flip side, Infosys was down by 9.10%, Wipro was down by 3.41%, Sterlite Industries was down by 2.31%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.71% and M&M was down by 1.70% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, during the April-June 2012 quarter the indirect tax collection rose up by 13.8% to Rs 1.07 lakh crore which way less than the planned 27% growth for 2012-13 year. The total indirect amount stood at Rs 10,7959.

A senior finance ministry official said “We will achieve this year's indirect tax collection target of Rs 5.05 lakh crore. The government has fixed different types of indirect tax including customs, excise and service tax collection target at Rs 5.05 lakh crore in the current fiscal year up about 27% from 2011-12 target.

In the first quarter the current fiscal, an amount of Rs 38,744 crore and Rs 41,147 crore was collected on account of customs and excise duty respectively. Along with it service tax added Rs 28,068 crore to the central exchequer. In the month of June indirect tax collection increased up by 14.8% to Rs 37,748 crore, while custom duty collection was at Rs 13,284 crore. Finally excise mop up was amounted to Rs 13,849 crore.

In 2011-12 indirect tax was amounted to Rs 3,92,781 crore which was 99.6% of the budget estimate. In April to June period the gross indirect tax collection was up by 6.77% to Rs 1.11 lakh crore which was short of the target annual growth of 15%.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,240.00; about 66 points lower compared to its previous closing of 5,306.30, and has touched a high and a low of 5,261.65 and 5,234.30, respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,238.05, lower by 68.25 points or 1.29%. There were 11 stocks advancing against 39 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Cairn up by 0.69%, BPCL up by 0.63%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.51%, Hero MotoCorp up by 0.47% and Asian Paints up by 0.34%.

On the flip side, Infosys down by 9.47%, Wipro down by 3.59%, HCL Tech down by 2.26%, RInfra down by 2.20% and Sesa Goa down by 1.95%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equities were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite lost 6.03 points or 0.28% to 2,169.35, Hang Seng index plunged by 310.11 points or 1.60% to 19,109.76, Jakarta Composite declined by 21.74 points or 0.55% to 3,998.37, Nikkei dipped 54.26 points or 0.61% to 8,796.29, KLSE Composite was down by 1.10 points or 0.06% to 1,628.42, Kospi Composite lost 9.92 points or 0.52% to 1,816.65 and Taiwan Weighted slumped by 83.17 points or 1.15% to 7,173.56, while Straight Times was lost 9.22 points or 0.31% to 2,980.06.