PROFIT BOOKING

Domestic bourses have made a soft opening, snapping a four-day gaining streak in early trade due to profit-booking after recent gains amid subdued cues from global counters. Overnight, the US markets continued their declining streak for the third straight day and all the major indices lost close to a quarter percent, as there were no significant monetary policy changes announced by Federal Reserve after its two days meeting while, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time. Back home, the downside remained capped in the early trade on the back of some good news that the trade deficit narrowed to $40.05 billion from $46.23 billion in the corresponding period last year. The trade deficit for June too fell to $10.31 billion from $14.4 billion in June 2011. Exports fell 5.5% to $25 billion in June, compared with $26.5 billion in the corresponding month last year, while imports declined by 13.5% to $35.4 billion, compared with $40.9 billion in June 2011. On the sectoral front consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by power and realty while, auto, banking and metal remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. Meanwhile, telecom stocks like Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communication all edged higher on report that telecom ministry has proposed the existing slab rate system of revenue sharing for spectrum usage charge to the cabinet, which if accepted, will help new entrants in the form of lower levy. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 770 shares on the gaining side against 552 shares on the losing side while 71 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 17,245.68; about 12 points lower compared to its previous closing of 17,257.38, and has touched a high and a low of 17,246.01 and 17,197.66 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 17,217.90, down by 39.48 points or 0.23%. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 55.28% stocks advancing against 39.63% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.19% and 0.15% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CD up by 0.54%, Power up by 0.48%, Realty up by 0.34%, TECk up by 0.27% and FMCG up by 0.18%. While, Auto down by 0.51%, Bankex down by 0.43%, Metal down by 0.42%, PSU down by 0.38% and HC down by 0.24% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.30%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.08%, Jindal Steel up by 0.90%, TCS up by 0.77% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.32%.

On the flip side, Coal India was down by 1.82%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.07%, Bajaj Auto was down by 0.98%, Tata Motors was down by 0.84% and ONGC was down by 0.82% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in the wake of drought fears, as more than half of the country is facing poor monsoon this year, Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced relief measures, which includes about  Rs 2,000 crore to states facing drought-like situation and 50 percent diesel subsidy to farmers to save standing kharif crops.

Out of 627 districts in India about 64% of districts have got deficient and scanty rains. The government has also decided to increase subsidy on seeds of various kharif crops and to remove import duty on oilcakes to boost fodder supply for livestock. Out of this Rs 1,440 crore will be provided to various states under integrated watershed programme for drought proofing.

EGoM confirmed that Rs 501 crore will be provided to Maharashtra, Rs 424 crore to Rajasthan, Rs 320 crore to Gujarat and Rs 195 crore to Karnataka. The centre has also decided to provide Rs 453 crore for improving drinking water supply in drought-affected areas and another Rs 50 crore for boosting fodder production.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,233.10; about 7 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 5,240.50, and has touched a high and a low of 5,236.90 and 5,220.70 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,225.70, lower by 14.80 points or 0.28%. There were 14 stocks advancing against 36 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 1.32%, NTPC up by 1.27%, RInfra up by 1.08%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.94% and TCS up by 0.86%.

On the flip side, Coal India down by 1.72%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.43%, Sterlite Industries down by 1.22%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.09% and Ambuja Cement down by 1.05%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite was down by 5.30 points or 0.25% to 2,118.06, Hang Seng lost 128.11 points or 0.65% to 19,692.27, Jakarta Composite lost 4.07 points or 0.11% to 4,126.58, Straits Times was down by 10.11 points or 0.30% to 3,041.42, Kospi Composite was down by 1.59 points or 0.08% to 1,878.97and Taiwan Weighted was lower by 2.53 points or 0.03% to 7,267.96.

On the other hand Nikkei 225 was up by 27.69 points or 0.32% to 8,669.54 and KLSE Composite was marginally up by 0.05 points to 1,632.50.