BEARISH

Sentiments continued to remain bearish on Wednesday's morning trade on the back of continued selling by funds due to falling rupee and weakening trend on global bourses. The US markets closed on a flat note with some indices losing marginally, the good economic news from the housing front got offset in late trades on concern of Europe that the leaders there may consider Greece's exit from euro. Moreover, all the Asian equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time. Back home, Sensex and Nifty have breached their crucial 16,000 and 4,850 level after rupee fell to a new record low in early trade on Wednesday, approaching the key psychological level of 56. On the sectoral front public sector undertaking and technology remained the only gainers while, consumer durables, auto and fast moving consumer goods witnessed the most selling pressure, dragging down the Sensex. Moreover, the broader indices too were struggling to get some traction and the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 616 shares on the gaining side against 814 shares on the losing side while 76 shares remained unchanged. 

The BSE Sensex opened at 15,995.14; about 31 points lower compared to its previous closing of 16,026.41, and has touched a low of 15,924.84 while high remain its opening.

The index is currently trading at 15,962.22 down by 64.19 points or 0.40%. There were 8 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a negative start with 41.18% stocks advancing against 53.74% declines. The broader indices were trading flat; the BSE Mid cap index declined 0.21% while small cap index rose 0.04%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, PSU up by 0.09% and TECk up by 0.01%. While, CD down by 1.42%, Auto down by 0.66%, FMCG down by 0.51%, Power down by 0.44% and HC down by 0.36% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL up by 2.91%, BHEL up by 1.01%, M&M up by 0.96%, SBI up by 0.91% and TCS up by 0.25%.

On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 3.43%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.65%, Sun Pharma was down by 1.44%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.22% and Bajaj Auto was down by 1.20% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the white paper on black money in India has refrained from providing any government estimates on black money but has quoted figures put forth by other organizations.  As per the agency named Global Financial Integrity (GFI) the amount as on December 2011 was to the tune of $104 billion whereas the Swiss national banks have pegged it at Rs 9,295 crore by the end of 2010. The paper has also spoken about the amount of FDIs routed through countries like Singapore and Mauritius to avoid taxes.

GFI is an international agency that promotes national and multi-lateral policies, safeguards and agreements aimed at curtailing the cross-border flow of illegal money. As per the agency, in the year 1984, black money in India amounted to Rs 37 crore as per estimates provided by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. The agency has also given the estimates on the illegitimate flow of money from China which stood at a substantial $2,467 billion as on December 2011.

The figures provided by the Swiss banks have been confirmed from the Swiss Ministry of External Affairs. It has also been quoted that deposits of Indians in Swiss banks have decreased from Rs 23,373 crore in 2006 to Rs 9,295 crore in 2010.

While mentioning the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country the paper has observed that Mauritius and Singapore were the two topmost FDI sources in India during April-March 2000-11. Mauritius accounted for 41.80% of entire FDI of $54,227 million from April-March 2000-11 and Singapore accounted for 9.17% of the total. The paper has noted that such big amounts could not have been sourced from small economies like those of Mauritius and Singapore and is indicative of the fact that these transactions had been routed through these countries to avoid taxes. 

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 4,843.00; about 17 points lower compared to its previous closing of 4,860.50, and has touched a high and a low of 4,848.10 and 4,829.55 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 4,841.20, lower by 19.30 points or 0.40%. There were 17 stocks advancing against 33 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were GAIL up by 3.12%, IDFC up by 1.35%, Reliance Infra up by 1.11%, BHEL up by 1.05% and M&M up by 0.85%.

On the flip side, Tata Power down by 2.69%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.49%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.33%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.43% and Jindal Steel down by 1.22%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite eased 4.67 points or 0.20% to 2,368.64, Hang Seng Index plummeted 324.80 points or 1.71% to 18,714.35, Jakarta Composite plunged 67.12 points or 1.67% to 3,953.98, KLSE Composite declined 5.77 points or 0.37% to 1,541.07, Nikkei 225 slumped 105.83 points or 1.21% to 8,623.46, Straits Times Index sank 36.50 points or 1.29% to 2,787.25, KOSPI Composite Index shrank 24.17 points or 1.32% to 1,804.52 and Taiwan Weighted drifted 108.19 points or 1.49% to 7,166.70.