Post session - Quick review

Showcasing some resilience, Indian equity markets managed to negotiate a flat close albeit with negative bias on the last trading session of the week. Prolong wait over government action on reforms front coupled with GDP qualms, after slew of downgrades on India’s growth story by International rating agencies, mainly triggered a red close at Dalal Street for third straight session. However, Indian equity markets showed immense resilience in light of daunting global set-up and disappointing show put forth by the state run, State Bank of India (SBI). 30 share barometer index, Sensex, on BSE, holding off the 17550 mark, ended a tad lower to its neutral line, while the 50 share index of NSE, Nifty, despite holding above 5300 bastion, ended in  red. However, local equity markets for the week, despite slipping for three out of five sessions, amassed massive gains of over two percent. But broader indices just managed to negotiate a flat close and for the session a mixed one. Midcap index, ended a little above its neutral line, while Smallcap index declined close to 0.25%. Sectorally, stocks from Information Technology, Technology and Fast Moving Consumer Goods counters managed to gain traction.

On the global front, Asian stocks ended mixed as slowdown in China’s July exports and imports dragged on sentiment and led select group of investors to lock in profits before the weekend. Meanwhile, European shares too pulled back following sluggish Chinese data, which prompted concerns about the strength of the world's second-largest economy.

Closer home, markets dropped sharply as a knee jerk reaction to the poor show by country's largest lender, although the bank reported over two fold jump in Q1 net profit at Rs 3751.56 crore as compared to Rs 1583.55 crore for the same quarter in the previous year, but a rise in bad loans spooked the sentiment. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank rose to 4.99% in the April-June quarter as against 3.52% in the same quarter previous year while net NPAs increased to 2.22%. However, by the close of trade, bourses made substantial recovery to end near the high points of the session, as some support emerged to the bourses near low levels.

Most of the corporate earnings reported for the day turned misses. India’s top drug maker, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, edged 0.15% lower, after the company’s net profit on standalone basis, declined by 30.85% at Rs 292.63 crore as compared to Rs 423.20 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2011. Meanwhile, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise too succumbed to profit booking by the end of the trade even after reporting a rise of 36.02% in its net profit at Rs 69.74 crore for the quarter. However, , flagship company of the $2.5 billion Kalyani group, Bharat Forge rose over 0.30% after reporting 8% rise of in its Q1FY13 net profit of Rs 105.21 crore as compared to Rs 97.42 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2011.

Sectorally, IT, Technology and Fast Moving Consumer Goods limited the downside of the bourses, while, Consumer Durable, Auto and Banking counters emerged as the losers. Auto stocks were on selling spree ever since the reports highlighted car sales slowing at nine month low of 6.17% in July. Competition Commission of India (CCI) probe against car makers for alleged restrictive and monopolistic trade practices, also added pessimistic tone. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1202:1553 while 133 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 10.45 points or 0.06% and settled at 17,571.32. The index touched a high and a low of 17,590.61 and 17,471.37 respectively. 14 stocks were seen advancing against 16 declining ones on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up 0.07% while Small-cap index was down 0.24%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, IT up 1.50%, TECk up 1.33%, FMCG up 0.75%, Oil & Gas up 0.22% and Metal up 0.20% were the only gainers, while Consumer Durables down 1.61%, Auto down 1.12%, PSU down 0.81%, Bankex down 0.71% and Realty down 0.51% were the top losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up 2.53%, HUL up 2.37%, Sterlite Industries up 2.29%, TCS up 1.78% and Infosys up 1.41% while, SBI down 4.32%, Tata Motors down 3.15%, Hero MotoCorp down 2.33%, Tata Steel down 1.43% and Tata Power down 0.94% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR) panel chaired by Parthasarathi Shome has agreed to submit its draft recommendations by August 31 and its report by September 30, 2012. The GAAR panel was set up by Prime Minister to deal with fresh consultations on the controversial tax issue.

The GAAR, which was proposed in the Budget 2012-13, and was postponed till April 2013 following strong opposition by foreign investors. The implementation was postponed by a year for wider consultation before bringing it into force. The first draft GAAR guidelines, prepared by the finance ministry, were placed in the public domain on June 29 to facilitate comments from various stakeholders.

Shome confirmed that the consultation process is very intense and it has met few policy makers and interacted with several international and domestic tax-advisory firms, and some concerned industrialists, with the aim to address the concerns faced them and elevate it to international guidelines standard.

India VIX, a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility lost 1.59% at 16.07 from its previous close of 16.33 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 3.05 points or 0.06% to settle at 5,326.00. The index touched high and low of 5,330.10 and 5,294.10 respectively. 22 stocks advanced against 28 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were BPLC up 3.59%, Maruti Suzuki up 2.46%, Kotak Bank up 2.33%, TCS up 2.13% and Sterlite Industries up 2.11%. On the other hand, SBI down 4.11%, Tata Motors down 3.24%, Ranbaxy Laboratories down 3.05%, Bank of Baroda down 2.55% and IDFC down 2.37% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in red, with France's CAC 40 down 0.85%, Germany's DAX down 0.46% and Britain’s FTSE 100 down 0.16%.

Most of the Asian markets fell on Friday on the back of weak Chinese trade data that reinforced worries over slowdown in the world's second largest economy. China's General Administration of Customs said exports grew just one percent in July year-on-year to $176.9 billion, while imports rose 4.7 percent to $151.8 billion, cutting the trade surplus to $25.1 billion from $31.7 billion in June. Some profit-taking after a week-long rally also added to selling pressure. Though, investor’s expectations for monetary policy easing capped some losses but Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesian markets despite opening in green fell after China released its trade data.