Domestic frontline indices extended the sorrow of closing in the red terrain for the ninth straight session on Thursday, its longest losing streak in almost a decade. The markets are going through a turbulent phase of late as they continue to hunt for a firm base to consolidate their losses and convalesce from thereon. The bears' rampage has shown little signs of dying down as they continue to reign, overlooking supportive leads like the deceleration in weekly food inflation numbers which had unexpectedly risen in the previous fortnight along with the retreat in international crude prices for the three consecutive sessions. The FII's seem unable to digest RBI's hawkish stance on inflation as they continued to plough back their funds from domestic markets on expectations that macroeconomic headwinds will eat in to their returns in the time to come and force the stock markets to underperform. Cues from the markets across the globe too remained highly unsupportive as the Asian markets exhibited mixed trends while the European markets gradually continued to drift lower as the day progressed thereby giving no significant upside trigger to the markets. The NSE's 50-share broadly followed index Nifty, drifted way below the psychological 5,500 level and went on to test the 5,450 levels as it settled with a nasty cut of around one and half a percent while Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index, Sensex shaved off around over two hundred and fifty points and finished above the psychological 18,200 level. The broader markets too failed miserably by the end of trade but managed to outperform benchmarks by a small margin. The midcap index plunged 0.95% while the smallcap index closed with 1.23% losses. On the sectoral front, the high beta Realty index got butchered by over 2.89% points as investors chose to square off positions from auto majors like HDIL and Unitech as they got slaughtered by a massive 8.09% and 3.42% respectively. Another counter that took huge cut was Power which deposed 2.40% after majors like Tata Power and NTPC nosedived 5.21% and 2.88% respectively. The ADAG pack too witnessed hefty bouts of profit booking as R Com declined 5.52% being the top laggard on the Sensex. Reliance Mediaworks declined by 5% while Reliance Power and Reliance Infra ended with 4-5% losses. Meanwhile among individual gainers, Hero Honda rallied by 6.11% on reporting highest ever sales for April month in FY12. On the result front, majority of the stocks got punished badly irrespective of the result's merit. Stocks like Andhra Bank, Canara Bank, Bharti Airtel, Oberoi Realty, A P Paper Mills slipped deeper into the red post result announcement, while Kotak Mahindra managed to buck the trend as it got commended by the investors.
On the global front, majority of Asian markets snapped the session on a mixed note. The Malaysian benchmark remained top laggard in the space as it slipped by around half a percent point while the Taiwanese markets remained top gainers in space amassing close to a percent. The European indices too are trading on a somber note as France's CAC slipped 0.79%, Germany's DAX shed 0.27% and London's FTSE 100 declined 0.57%. On the other hand, the screen trading for US index futures too indicated that the Dow could open on a negative note on Tuesday.
Earlier on Dalal Street, the benchmark got off to a flat opening tracking the somber Asian markets which prolonged their gloomy run as sentiments largely remained influenced by the overnight Wall Street which declined on concerns of jobs market and some weak earnings and economic reports. The indices showed some signs of recovery for around an hour in the morning but profit booking at higher levels took its toll on the benchmarks. They see-sawed in an extremely tight band through the first half of trade as hefty gains in index heavyweights like RIL, ONGC and Hero Honda provided the much needed support. However, panic selling in the initial hours of second half proved costly for the bourses which could not recoup the losses in the rest of the session. Though some short covering was witnessed in the dying hours of trade, however, the rise was utilized by bears to take profits off the table and batter the benchmarks to the session's lowest point by the end of trade. Eventually the bourses shut shops with large cuts of around one and half a percent, extending the downward streak to ninth straight session. Markets plummeted on volumes of over Rs 1.27 lakh crore while the turnover for NSE F&O segment remained on the lower side compared to Wednesday at over 1.14 lakh crore. Market breadth remained abysmal as there were 867 shares on the gaining side against 1931 shares on the losing side while 128 shares remained unchanged.
Finally, the BSE Sensex plunged by 258.78 points or 1.40% to settle at 18,210.58 while the S&P CNX Nifty lost 77.30 points or 1.40% to end at 5,459.85.
The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 18,569.21 and 18,160.65 respectively. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap index declined by 0.95% and 1.23% respectively.
Hero Honda up 6.11%, RIL up 0.26% and Maruti Suzuki up 0.06% were only gainers on the Sensex.
On the flip side, Reliance Communication down 5.52%, Tata Power down 5.21%, Reliance Infrastructure down 4.23%, Sterlite Industries down 3.27% and Bharti Airtel down 3.25% were the major losers on the index.
India's food inflation numbers have shown a trend reversal for the week ended April 23 after showing unexpected rise in the previous fortnight on the back of considerable ease in prices of pulses and wheat. The latest inflation figures is likely to bring some respite to the government and Reserve Bank of India as they have had to face severe criticism for being unable to control the inflationary pressure.
According to the data released by the commerce and industry ministry on Thursday, the food price index rose at 8.53% during the 12 months ending April 23, compared with a corresponding figure of 8.76% a week ago. On a weekly basis, however, the index was nearly up by 1% to 184.5 compared with a figure of 182.6 for the previous week due to higher prices of fruits and vegetables. The index for non-food articles group also declined by 0.4% to 193.3 from 192.5 for the previous week. The primary articles price index was up 12.11%, compared with an annual rise of 12.08% a week earlier.
The index for fuel and power group, which has a weight of 14.91% in the WPI, remained unchanged at its previous week's level of 160.3 while the annual rate of inflation for this category stood at the previous week's level of 13.53%.
Though food prices inflation have eased in the past few weeks but have hovered over 8% while the wholesale price gauge for March has stayed around 9%. In its recent policy statement, the RBI highlighted its worries over the current levels of inflation which it forecast will remain elevated thru the FY 2012 and pegged it around 6% with an upward bias. WPI inflation data for April is likely to be released next week.
Consumer Durables (CD) up 0.22% and Oil & Gas up 0.01%, were only gainers in the BSE sectoral space. Realty down 2.89%, Power down 2.40%, FMCG down 1.82%, Health Care down 1.68% and Bankex down 1.66% were major losers in the BSE sectoral space.
The S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 5,560.30 and 5,443.65 respectively.
The top gainers on the Nifty were Hero Honda up 5.96%, Kotak Bank up 2.30%, Maruti up 0.76%, GAIL up 0.55% and Reliance up 0.18%.
The top losers on the index were Ranbaxy down 6.33%, Reliance Communication down 5.67, PNB down 5.53%, Tata Power down 5.08% and Reliance Power down 4.91%.
At the Forty-second meeting of Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC), a Finance Ministry panel granted a go ahead to seven projects of Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The projects include widening of roads in five states and in total are anticipated to cost around Rs 7,553.83 crore under public private partnership mode. In the meeting held on April 19, 2011, R Gopalan, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance granted the approval for five projects related to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the rest with Ministry of Home Affairs.
The Finance Ministry panel cleared development projects associated with Police Head Quarters for Delhi Police at Parliament Street, New Delhi at an estimated cost of Rs 202 crore along with a Police Housing Complex for Delhi Police personnel at Dheerpur at an estimated cost of Rs 790.58 crore.
The R Gopalan chaired panel also approved four laning of Jabalpur-Katni-Rewa Section of NH 7 in Madhya Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 1,906.83 crore while similar four laning projects of Obedullaganj-Budhni Betul section of NH 69 in Madhya Pradesh, four-laning of Orissa border to Aurang section of NH 6 in Chhattisgarh and four-laning of Meerut to Bulandshahar section of NH 235 in Uttar Pradesh were also given the green signal. In addition, six-laning of Icchapuram-Srikakulam-Anandpuram section of NH 5 in Andhra Pradesh that would cost Rs 1,764 crore was also approved by the panel.
Since its constitution in January 2006, PPPAC has granted approval to 219 projects, with an estimated project cost of Rs 213780.58 crore. These include National Highways, Ports, Airports, Housing, Tourism Infrastructure, Railways and Sports Stadia.
European markets were trading in red. France's CAC 40 plunged by 1.31%, Germany's DAX fell by 0.91% and Britain's FTSE 100 was trading lower by 0.88%.
Asian equity market closed the day's trade mixed as investors remained cautious amid the decline in commodities and a general reduction in risk appetite. Chinese benchmark edged higher in the trade on Thursday, reversing early loses on the back of rebound witnessed in bank and steel shares. In addition, Taiwan Weighted remained the major gainer among the Asian peers surging 0.80 percent, supported by a jump in glass makers and electronics shares. However, stock markets in Japan and South Korea remained closed for the trade today on account of public holiday.
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