RANGE BOUND

Indian benchmarks have managed to cut some part of their hefty losses and are trading range bound with cuts of around half a percentage points in Thursday late morning session. The BSE's Sensex is gradually crawling towards the important psychological 15,600 levels at a time when markets across Asia region have cut their losses and trading moderately lower after investors raised doubts over money borrowed by banks from ECB in the 3-year long term refinancing operation (LTRO). Back home, metal stocks declined after recent data showed Chinese manufacturing activity continued to contract in December 2011, with Tata Steel hitting 52-week low. While, Capital goods stocks dropped on worries that new order flows will be hit adversely in a slowing economy. However, FMCG major Hindustan Lever scaled record high today on defensive buying. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of declines which thrashed advances in the ratio of 1259:996, while 103 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,585.63, down by 99.58 points or 0.63%. The index has touched a high and a low of 15,615.14 and 15,491.80 respectively. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 declining ones on the index.
The broader indices too continued to trade in red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined by 0.19% and 0.35% respectively.
The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, FMCG up by 1.21%, CD up by 0.57%, HC up by 0.44%, Power and Realty up by 0.42%. While, IT down by 2.13%, TECk down by 2.05%, Metal down by 0.94%, CG down by 0.56% and Oil & Gas down by 0.52% were the top losers on the index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were HUL up by 2.67%, DLF up by 1.49%, NTPC up by 1.15%, Tata motors up by 0.76% and Cipla up by 0.68%.
On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 2.81%, Infosys down by 2.56%, Wipro down by 2.55%, Coal India down by 1.92% and Hindalco Industries down by 1.59% were the top losers on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance is considering a proposal of loan restructuring for the textile sector and a decision in this regard is expected soon. The textiles ministry has been following the matter with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the finance ministry after considering the industry's demand for re-setting of bank loans worth Rs 1 lakh crore.
On the sidelines of Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) function, Textiles Secretary Rita Menon said, 'we had a meeting with finance ministry day before yesterday and they have given us 10 days time, so we hope we can have something before New Year.' Further the finance ministry is likely to examine the cases of sickness in textile units and accordingly prepare a report, which would be followed by inter-ministerial consultations.
Textile sector has been hit hard by a sharp fall in cotton yarn prices, poor domestic demand and curb on cotton yarn exports in last December. Now, SMEs in sectors like silk, power-loom, spinning are facing difficulty to repay term loans and financing working capital on the back of high interest regime.
Menon said, the textiles ministry is not requesting for a 'cash outgo' rather it is a moratorium on loans for two years so that the working capital could be arranged for that time period. By adding further she said the step of suspension of loan repayment for two years would protect units from becoming non-performing assets as we are attempting to see these units are not termed non-performing assets.

The government also admitted in Parliament that banks have reported stress in repayments, as there is a slowdown in the textiles industry. Further, confederation of Indian Textile Industry had reported that out of 287 companies list in the BSE, 122 companies have reported net loss in the first quarter of 2011-12 and 166 companies have shown poor results compared to previous year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,667.80, lower by 25.35 points or 0.54%. The index has touched a high and a low of 4,677.20 and 4,677.20 respectively. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declining ones on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 2.68%, HUL up by 2.58%, Punjab National Bank (PNB) up by 2.02%, DLF up by 1.54% and Ambuja Cement up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 3.02%, Wipro down by 2.59%, Infosys down by 2.52%, RCom down by 2.51% and Coal India down by 2.08% were the major losers on the index.
Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 0.06%, Hang Seng slid 0.32%, Nikkei 225 descended 0.77%, Straits Times was down by 0.38%, Seoul Composite surrendered 0.05% and Taiwan Weighted was trading flat with negative bias.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite gained 0.16% remained the lone gainer among the Asian pack.