STABILIZING

Indian equity markets are stabilizing slowly, pruning their initial losses. Though, the Asian peers' condition have deteriorated further and some of them are down by around 3 percent. There is gloom across the global markets after the world's largest economy US reported that employment growth slowed sharply in the nation. The Indian markets have suffered a lot in the last week and that seems to have given chance of bottom fishing for the investors, though barring the oil & gas sector none of the sectoral gauges are looking in comfortable position with Consumer durables suffering the most, down by over three percent. Rate sensitive realty sector too is under extreme pressure, down by around two percent. Gain in oil marketing companies and upstream ONGC has taken the sectoral index in green after the OMC's posted profit numbers for the last quarter of the year. Though, the chairman and managing directors' of the three OMCs in a joint statement have clarified that the companies were able to report profit in 2011-12 mainly due to assistance of Rs 83,500 crore from the government and Rs 55,000 crore from the upstream oil companies.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,847.98, down by 117.18 points or 0.73%. The index has touched a high 15,868.16 and low 15,748.98 of respectively. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 declines on the index. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favor of declines in the ratio of 747:1434, while 116 shares remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading on a negative note; The BSE Mid-cap index was down by 0.93%, while Small-cap index was down by 0.71%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE was Oil & Gas up by 0.11%, While, CD down by 2.90%, Realty down by 2.01%, Metal down by 1.35%, TECk down by 1.18% and Power down by 1.09% were the major losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 0.91%, Tata Motors up by 0.53% and RIL up by 0.21%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 4.50%, Gail India down by 2.99%, Bajaj Auto down by 2.70%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.58% and Sterlite Industries down by 2.47%, were the major losers on the index.

Meanwhile, the confederation of Indian industry (CII) has demanded that the government should take immediate steps to revive the economy. These demands are coming on the back of the fact that economic growth has slowed down to a nine year low of 6.5%. CII is of the opinion that the slowdown in GDP numbers should serve as a wakeup call for the government and it should announce an 'economic revival package' to put the economy back on the path of growth.

Some of the measures suggested by the chamber are- a cut in the repo as well as the reverse repo rate by at least 100 basis points, speeding up the reform measures in multi-brand retail and civil aviation and bringing in the goods and services tax as early as possible. It has further suggested that the government should also make efforts to reduce the subsidy burden and take steps to incentivize exports.CII is of the view that these steps will not only speed up the economy but will also serve as sentiment boosters.

The CII President Adi Godrej has also suggested that to ease the pressure on the rupee, the RBI should open a temporary special window for importers of certain items, which have an inelastic demand such as crude oil, to meet their foreign exchange requirements. Further green efforts by the industry need to be encouraged by extending 25% weighted tax deduction on expenditure incurred on such initiatives.

It is noteworthy that the Indian economy is now showing clear signs of a slowdown. The growth rate of eight core infrastructure sectors like coal, cement, electricity, oil, and steel has halved to 2.2% in April against 4.2% a year ago. All major financial institutions like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Stanchart and Citi have revised India's economic growth to 5.7- 6.3%, much lesser than the earlier estimates of over 7%.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,803.05, lower by 38.55 points or 0.80%. The index has touched a high and low of 4,807.95 and 4,770.35 respectively. There were 6 stocks advancing against 43 declines while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 1.40%, ONGC up by 1.30%, Bank of Baroda up by 1.28% Ambuja Cement up by 1.17%, and Tata Motors up by 0.91%. 

On the flip side, Cairn down by 5.65%, DLF down by 4.38%, Bajaj-Auto down by 2.69%, GAIL down by 2.69% and Dr Reddy down by 2.42% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices continued to reel under pressure; Jakarta Composite down 3.19%, Straits Times Index down 1.39%, KOSPI Composite Index  down 2.80%, Taiwan Weighted down 2.98%, Nikkei 225 down 1.99%, KLSE Composite down by 0.93%, Shanghai Composite lower by 2.02% and Hang Seng Index was down 2.27%.