MARKETS TRADE LOWER

Pressurized by sluggish Asian cues, Indian equity indices have made a lackluster start on Tuesday with Sensex and Nifty breaching their crucial 18,800 and 5,700 levels respectively. All the Asian equity indices, barring Japanese Nikkei, were trading lower after US lawmakers failed to come to a conclusion to avert the imposition of $85 billion in spending cuts that kicked in on Friday last week. However, US share indices firmed up on Friday on the back of better-than-expected US manufacturing data and consumer sentiment indicating signs of an economic recovery.

Back home, sentiments got dented as Reserve Bank of India's governor D Subbarao said that India's growth story is still intact, with the potential to grow at double digit rates, provided some issues are addressed, as a mere 5-6% growth is not sufficient. Moreover, fall in Metal counter too dampened the sentiments. Stocks like Sterlite Industries, SAIL, Hindalco, JSW Steel and Tata Steel declined as LMEX, a gauge of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, fell 1.35% on March 1, 2013. Meanwhile, Index heavyweight and cigarette maker ITC dropped for the second day in a row after the government raised the excise duty on cigarettes by about 18% on all cigarettes except cigarettes of length not exceeding 65 mm in Union Budget 2013-14. Bucking the trend, shares of state-owned oil marking companies (OMC) were trading higher 1-2% in an otherwise weak market after these companies hiked petrol price by Rs 1.40 per litre from Friday midnight.

On the sectoral front, software and technology remained the only gainers on the BSE sectoral index while, realty, metal and capital goods remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were bleeding badly while, the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 560 shares on the gaining side against 1,351 shares on the losing side while 71 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,920.90; about 2 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,918.52, and has touched a high and a low of 18,930.86 and 18,760.41 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,779.94, down by 138.58 points or 0.73%. There were 7 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a weak start with 28.14% stocks advancing against 68.12% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices decline by 1.36% and 1.32% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 0.51% and TECk up by 0.30% while, Realty down by 3.32%, Metal down by 2.09%, Capital Goods down by 1.89%, Power down by 1.79% and PSU down by 1.66% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 0.66%, TCS up by 0.64%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 0.60%, Infosys up by 0.43% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.26%.

On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 2.63%, Jindal Steel was down by 2.54%, Bajaj Auto was down by 2.44%, Hindalco Industries was down by 2.12% and L&T was down by 2.02% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, after facing disappointment from the Union Budget '2013-14', there comes no end to suffering of common-man, effecting another major hike in a fortnight, petrol price have been raised by Rs 1.40 per litre from March 1 midnight. Petrol will now cost Rs 70.74 in Delhi as against Rs 69.06 earlier, Rs 78.34 per litre in Kolkata, Rs 77.66 in Mumbai and Rs 73.95 in Chennai. The price in Bangalore will go up by Rs 1.84 to Rs 77.88. The prices might vary a bit in the rest of the State.

The price increase has been necessitated by two factors. Firstly, the international gasoline (petrol) prices, which has increased from $128.57 per barrel to $131 a barrel since the last revision and secondly the rupee that has depreciated from Rs 53.43 to Rs 54.15 against the dollar. Petrol prices were last increased by Rs 1.50 per litre on February 16.

Apart from losses on sale of petrol, oil firms are suffering under-recovery (revenue loss) on sale of diesel of Rs 11.26 per litre, kerosene of Rs 33.43 a litre and LPG of Rs 439 per cylinder. On account of this, oil marketing companies (OMC's) will be closely monitoring the trends of international oil prices and Rupee-USD exchange rate and the same shall be reflected in future price changes.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,704.70; about 14 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 5,719.70, and has touched a high and a low of 5,714.90 and 5,663.60 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,668.80, down by 50.90 points or 0.89%. There were 7 stocks advancing against 43 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 0.97%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 0.55%, TCS up by 0.45%, Wipro up by 0.31% and HCL Tech up by 0.31%.

On the flip side, Reliance Infrastructure down by 3.36%, Bajaj-Auto down by 3.04%, Hindalco down by 2.58%, Sesa Goa down by 2.57% and ACC down by 2.49%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite tumbled 67.37 points or 2.86% to 2,292.14, Hang Seng crumbled 297.35 points or 1.30% to 22,582.87, Jakarta Composite declined 22.63 points or 0.47% to 4,788.98, KLSE Composite slipped 1.98 points or 0.12% to 1,635.46, Straits Times dropped 18.72 points or 0.57% to 3,250.78, KOSPI Composite contracted 6.01 points or 0.30% to 2,020.48 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 84.81 points or 1.06% to 7,879.82.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 69.37 points or 0.60% to 11,675.75.