WEAK TRADE

Indian equities continued to trade weak in the late morning session as funds and retail investors booked profits ahead of the railway budget. On the global front, most of the Asian equity markets were trading lower at this point of time after signs of an inconclusive general election in Italy sparked worries that another chapter in Europe's debt crisis could be opening. The Japanese market was suffering a cut of over two percent as the companies that do business in Europe dropped. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in TECk, IT and FMCG, while selling was seen in Auto, Capital Goods, and Oil & Gas sectors. In scrip specific development, Railways related stocks like Kernex Microsystems, Zicom Electronic, Titagarh Wagons, Kalindee Rail, Stone India were trading sharply lower ahead of the Rail Budget 2013-14.

In scrip specific actions, Kingfisher Airlines was locked at 5% lower circuit after the Ministry of Civil Aviation decided to withdraw all International Bilateral Traffic Rights allocated to the airline with immediate effect. BHEL was trading in red despite signing MOU with Indian Railways for a multiple unit coach factory at Bhilwara in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading near their psychological 5800 and 19,200 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing negative trend with advances to declines in ratio of 645:1334.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19223.08, down by 108.61 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 19293.49 and 19186.02. There were just 5 stocks advancing against 25 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.90% and Small cap index has lost 0.83%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, TECk up by 0.64%, IT up by 0.18% and FMCG up by 0.05%while Auto down by 1.36%, Capital Goods down by 1.16%, Oil & Gas down by 1.05%, Bankex down by 0.98% and Metal down by 0.94%were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.60%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.17%, ITC up by 0.98%, TCS up by 0.87% and Infosys up by 0.84%.

On the flip side, ICICI Bank was down by 2.18%, Tata Motors was down by 2.07%,  Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.93%, Hindalco Industries was down by 1.87%, and Bajaj Auto was down by 1.87% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, The second round of the 2G spectrum auction sale is expected to set up a flop show as there is no applicant for GSM band of radiowaves. While, for CDMA band, Russian Sistema's Indian joint venture, Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) is the only firm at close of deadline on Monday for applying to take part in the auction. 

The government has planned to conduct auction for spectrum unsold in November auction along with spectrum that is held by operators whose licences are due for renewal in 2014. It will auction 15 MHz of radio waves each in Delhi and Mumbai in the 1800 Mhz band, currently used for 2G GSM services, as against 4.4 Mhz and 13.2 Mhz respectively released in these circles through quashed permits.

However, in the second round of auctions in March, the government is expected to get around Rs 25,316 crore from the auction in the premium 900 Mhz band, and Rs 14,579 crore from auction of unsold spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band, while for CDMA, it is expected to get over Rs 6463 crore.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,818.60 down by 36.15 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 5,838.85 and 5,810.45. There were 10 stocks advancing against 39 declines while 1stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 3.63%, HUL up by 1.14%, JP Associates up by 0.96%, Infosys up by 0.93% and TCS up by 0.77%.

On the flip side, IDFC down by 2.51%, Tata Motors down by 2.19%, ICICI Bank down by 2.14%, Bajaj-Auto down by 2.12%, and Maruti down by 2.02%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Hang Seng declined 196.07points or 0.86% to 22,624.01, Jakarta Composite dropped 42.56 points or 0.91% to 4,652.54, KLSE Composite dipped 2.74 points or 0.17% to 1,624.61, Nikkei 225 tumbled 252.04 points or 2.16% to 11,410.48, Straits Times contracted 16.23 points or 0.54% to 3,270.87 KOSPI Composite decreased 10.82 points or 0.54% to 1,998.70 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 61.86 points or 0.78% to 7,885.82.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 8.08 points or 0.35% to 2,333.90.