FRESH LOWS

After showing some signs of recovery in late morning session, Indian benchmark indices have plunged to the fresh intraday lows in Tuesday afternoon trades. Jittery investors lacked conviction to build positions as worries over the outlook of markets intensified amid heightened uncertainty over Europe's future and also amid the gloomy domestic macro-economic headwinds. The frontline indices are gradually crawling towards the psychological 4,550 (Nifty) and 15,200 (Sensex) levels at a time when Asian markets are largely exhibiting positive trends. Sentiments largely remained pessimistic in the domestic markets as concerns over faltering economic growth and the rupee's depreciating run overshadowed positive Asian leads. Worries from the European front too played their share of spoilsport as reports that ECB President's remarks that the European economic outlook faced substantial downside risks, intensified doubts about a solution to Europe's debt woes. Meanwhile, investors also overlooked the encouraging reports from US which suggested that the world's largest economy is likely to expand between 2 percent to 2.5 percent next year. Back home, media shares surged to higher levels on the buzz that Mukesh Ambani, head of oil and gas major Reliance Industries is eyeing to buy a stake in Network 18. Reports that RBI has allowed micro finance institutions to raise funds via external commercial borrowings (ECBs) up to $10 million or equivalent during a financial year for permitted end-uses under the automatic route, helped SKS Microfinance to trade on a positive note. On the BSE sectoral space, the badly beaten down Capital Goods space continued to bear the brunt of hefty position squaring and plummeted over two percent followed by the metal index which too sank with similar gains. The rate sensitive counters with too remained on the sellers radar with Realty and Auto indices trading with over two percent cuts. On the other hand, only the defensive FMCG pocket managed to hold its head above the water and traded with moderate gains.
Moreover, the broader markets too traded on a daunting note with around a percent losses, underperforming their larger peers by a quite a margin. The bourses sank on strong volumes of over Rs 0.60 lakh core. The market breadth on BSE was dominantly in favor of declines in the ratio of 1604:826 while 122 scrips remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,271.14 down by 108.20 points or 0.70% after trading as high as 15,448.13 and as low as 15,268.60. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.
The broader indices were trading on a pessimistic note; the BSE Mid cap index plunged 1.13% and Small cap plummeted 0.93%.
On the BSE sectoral space, FMCG up 0.59% was the only gainer while Capital Goods down 2.38%, Metal down 2.35%, Realty down 2.26%, Auto down 2.06% and Consumer Durables down 1.68% were the major losers in the space.
ONGC up 2.24%, HDFC Bank up 1.82%, ITC up 1.34%, HDFC up 0.67% and Tata Power up 0.12% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while JP Associates down 5.19%, Hero Moto down 3.64%, Jindal Steel down 3.22%, Tata Steel down 2.96% and L&T down 2.85% were the major losers in the index.
Meanwhile, sugar production in world's second largest producing nation - India picked up pace despite initial crushing delay of about a month as the overall sugar production till December 15 jumped by 18.7% as compared to the similar period of previous season. As per the data released by Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the all India sugar output till December 15 was 45.84 lakh tonnes as against 38.63 lakh tonnes a year earlier due to higher crushing in major growing regions.
India's largest sugar-producing state - Maharashtra, where mills started their crushing slightly late this year, manufactured 17.50 lakh tonnes of the sweetener, as of December 15, while in the same period last year the state had produced 16.25 lakh tonnes of sugar. Nation's second-largest sugar producing state - Uttar Pradesh produced 12.85 lakh tonnes in the review period from 8.55 lakh tonnes last year, registering an increase of around 50 percent.

While, sugar production in Karnataka also went up to 8.25 lakh tonnes till December 15 of the sugar season which runs from October to September, compared to 7.35 lakh tonnes in the sugar season a year-ago. ISMA also opined that 452 mills have started operations as of December 12, 2011 as against 445 mills which were operational on December 15, 2010. The apex body of private sugar millers has pegged the country's total sugar output at 26 million tonnes in the 2011-12 season, slightly higher than the government's forecast of 24.6 to 25 million tonnes, while annual demand is estimated at 22 million tonnes. The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,575.15, lower by 37.95 points or 0.82% after trading as high as 4,637.25 and as low as 4,574.55. There were 10 stocks advancing against 40 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were ONGC up 2.39%, HDFC Bank up 1.79%, Ranbaxy up 1.41%, ITC up 1.24% and HDFC up 0.78%.
JP Associates down 5.29%, Kotak Bank down 4.36%, Hero Moto down 4.27%, Jindal Steel down 3.69% and Axis Bank down 3.59% were the major losers on the index.
Asian markets traded largely on a positive note, Shanghai Composite added 0.03%, Hang Seng climbed 0.52%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.49%, Seoul Composite surged 0.91% and Taiwan Weighted advanced 0.44%.
On the flipside, Jakarta Composite eased 0.36% while Straits Times slipped 0.09%.