Market continues to be sluggish, Nifty falls below 8900

12:58 PM Market Check: Sluggishness in the market has continued in noon trade, with the indices trading almost flat. The Sensex was up 0.26 points at 28813.14, while the Nifty was down 4.55 points or 0.05% at 8892.15.

12:47 PM Auto sales expectations: As auto majors get set to announce February sales figures, Motilal Oswal foresees new launches driving passenger vehicles (PVs) segment, while two-wheelers could be strained on demonetisation woes.

Simultaneously, pre-buying should aid volumes of commercial vehicles (CVs), it believes. In PVs space, the brokerage house expects Maruti Suzuki’s volumes to grow 20 percent year-on-year for February, an outperformance to the entire PV industry. This volume spike may be driven by growth in compact utility vehicles (UVs) and supported by Baleno, it said.

“Besides this, the launch of Ignis is likely to contribute to marginal incremental volumes,” Motilal Oswal said in a report.

12: 35 PM Jio tariff: Besides the Rs 303 plan, Jio plans to roll out two new monthly tariff plans at Rs 149 and Rs 499 which offer 2GB and 60 GB data along with free voice, respectively, according to note by brokerage firm CLSA.

“As per our discussion with channel partners and retailers, Reliance Jio has revealed more tariff plans under the “Jio Prime Program” that requires one-time membership charge of Rs 99 to be paid before March 31, 2017,” CLSA said in the note.

“For Jio Prime Members, two more monthly plans will be available other than the Rs 303 plan announced last week. The cheapest monthly plan is Rs 149 which offers free domestic voice and 2GB data without any daily limits. Another plan offers 60 GB (2GB daily data allowance) and unlimited voice for Rs 499,” it said.

12: 20 PM D-Mart IPO: Radhakishan Damani promoted-Avenue Supermarts, the owner and operator of supermarket retail chain D-Mart, is set to raise Rs 1,810-Rs 1,866 crore by offering 6.23 crore shares priced between Rs 290-299, say merchant bankers to the issue. The issue will be open for bidding from March 8 to March 10.

Avenue Supermarts has reserved 1.87 crore shares for anchor investors’ book, 1.24 crore for qualified institutional buyers, 93.59 lakh for non-institutional investors and 2.18 crore shares for retail investors.

Grey market brokers say that the issue is quoting at a premium of Rs 170-180 in the unofficial market.

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After opening glat, the market continued to be sluggish in noon trade, with the Nifty falling below 8900-mark again.

The Sensex was down 6.71 points at 28806.17, while the Nifty was down 6.20 points at 8890.50. The market breadth was seen narrowing after 1,330 shares had advanced, 1,097 shares had declined, while 170 shares remained unchanged.

Bharti Airtel, M&M and Hindalco were the top gainers on both the indices, while Idea Cellular, Coal India and Bajaj Auto were the top losers.

Larsen and Toubro surged over a percent after its arm entered into an EPC agreement with Shell Group for EPC management of Shell’s cites in multiple regions, including Middle East.

Meanwhile, Reliance Defence & Engineering also gained on reports of a windfall gain for the company post Dassault Aviation deal.