Indian markets suffered cut of around a percent after a volatile trade in the last session, blue chips came under selling pressure as traders opted to book profit. Today, the start is likely to be a bit soft-to-cautious tailing the weakness in the global markets. There will be buzz on the street related to the political developments after Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for raising LPG cap, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily has announced that the quota of subsidised cooking cylinders will be hiked to 12 from 9 per household. Increasing the limit to 12 would result in an additional fuel subsidy burden of Rs 3,300 crore-5,800 crore for the government and the PSU oil marketing companies are likely to come under pressure with that. The iron and steel stocks too are likely to show some negative reaction to the report that India’s iron ore exports have gone down by 28.16 per cent to 11.17 million tonnes (mt) during April-December of the current fiscal owing to the present regulatory scenario. However, there is a good news that FII’s remained on their buying spree and increased their stake in major companies in the December quarter.
There will be lots of result reaction to the announcements made during the weekend, while some important companies will be reporting their numbers today. Aptech, Dewan Housing, Kajaria Ceramics, Tata Metaliks, Ultratech Cements and VST Inds will be announcing their numbers.
The US markets mostly made a lower closing in last session on some weak earnings and economic data. The major Asian markets have made a soft start ahead of the China’s factory output and gross domestic product data.
Back home, Friday turned out to be a disappointing session of trade for the stock markets in India as the benchmark equity indices clobbered out of shape and settled the session below their crucial 6,300 (Nifty) and 21,100 (Sensex) levels, as sentiments got spooked on account of disappointing Q3 numbers by some of the blue chip stocks like ITC and TCS. Sentiment remained downbeat right from the beginning after the Global ratings agency Moody’s underscored that India’s economic recovery is likely to be slow in the second half of 2014 and the outcome of general elections could have an impact on the growth prospects. Investors also remained sidelines ahead of earnings of index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL). On the global front, most of the Asian markets ended in the red, however, European markets traded in the green in early deals. Back home, selling in banking counter too dampened the sentiments after the industry body Assocham underscored that the growth of Indian banking industry is likely to remain under pressure with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) expected to touch 5 percent of total loans by March this year. Moreover, telecom stocks viz. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication extended their previous session’s slide triggered by Reliance Industries surprisingly deciding to join the bidding for upcoming telecom spectrum auction slated for February 3, 2014. Sentiments also remained dampened after TCS’ Q3 result fell short of market expectations. The company, on consolidated basis, reported 50.25% rise in its net profit at Rs 5333.43 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2013 as compared to Rs 3549.62 crore for the same quarter in the previous year. Finally, the BSE Sensex plunged by 201.56 points or 0.95%, to settle at 21063.62, while the CNX Nifty declined by 57.25 points or 0.91% to settle at 6,261.65.
