Market Live: Sensex, Nifty continue to be sluggish; IT stocks crack again

Fri Jun 09 2017
Ramesh Sridharan (904 articles)
Market Live: Sensex, Nifty continue to be sluggish; IT stocks crack again

12:40 pm Europe trade: European stocks gained momentum after general elections indicated that there could be a possibility of hung parliament in the UK.

France’s CAC, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE gained 1 percent each.

12:15 pm Market Check: Consolidation continued on the indices, with the Nifty hovering around 9600-mark now.

The Sensex was down 75.45 points at 31137.91, while the Nifty was down 22.75 points at 9624.50. The market breadth was negative as 1,154 shares advanced against a decline of 1,206 shares, while 133 shares were unchanged.

Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra and Mahindra and Vedanta were the top gainers, while ITC, Infosys and Tech Mahindra lost the most.

11:42 am FII View: The Nifty which has already rallied over 17 percent so far in the year 2017 could well come under some pressure as the momentum seems decelerating, Laurence Balanco, Global Technical Analyst at brokerage firm CLSA said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

The key short-term risk for the Nifty is a slowdown in momentum which is a near-term risk for the index. “The current breakout in the uptrend is decelerating and there is a possibility that we come back to 50-days moving average around 9000-9100 which would be more of buying opportunity,” said Balanco.

“If we look at the momentum indicators to look at the speed and rate of change on charts over a period of time indicate deceleration of the trend and we see Nifty pullback towards 9,100 or 600 points,” he said.

However, on the long term basis, Nifty is on track to hit 12,000 mark.

11.14 am Market check: Equity benchmarks continued to consolidate with a negative bias. Asia turned mixed and European stocks are also likely to open mixed as UK general elections’ results indicated possibility of a hung parliament.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 59.06 points at 31,154.30 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 19.95 points to 9,627.30.

Maruti Suzuki hit a fresh record high intraday, up nearly 2 percent after a media report indicated that the company plans to spend Rs 1,000 crore in land acquisition this year.

Reliance Industries continued to support the market, up nearly 1 percent followed by HDFC Bank. HDFC rebounded after early losses while TCS remained higher.

Infosys continued to be leading contributor to Sensex’ losses, down 2 percent followed by ITC, Adani Ports, L&T, Tata Motors, SBI.

10:45 am Market Outlook: At a time when the market is witnessing strong moves, with bouts of consolidation, IL&FS sees sideways movements for the near term.

Highlighting that in the current situation, macros are positive and could be better post good monsoon, Vibhav Kapoor of IL&FS told CNBC-TV18 that it was legitimate for the market to assume that these will translate into higher earnings growth.

Having said that he saw strong resistance at 9650-9700 as a strong resistance point for the Nifty. A crossover from this point could take the index to 10000, he said. But, in the near term, there could be a correction, but not a deep one.

10:28 am SBI cuts loan exposure: In a sign that large corporate lending is being cut to size at India’s largest lender, State Bank of India’s (SBI) exposure of loans to top 20 largest borrowers declined by 22 percent to Rs 1.82 lakh crore in FY17. This accounted for 11.19 percent of total loans.

In the previous year, this number stood at Rs 2.34 lakh crore, accounting for 15.5 percent of total loans, SBI said in its Annual Report for 2016-17.

Additionally, the total exposure to top four NPA (non-performing asset) accounts also dipped to Rs 21,901.5 crore in FY17 as compared to Rs 26,863.5 crore a year ago, the annual report showed.

10.10 am Market Check: Benchmark indices continued to reel under pressure amid volatility. Investors digested UK exit poll that showed there could be a possibility of hung parliament after Thursday’s election.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 75.63 points at 31,137.73 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 24.30 points to 9,622.95.

Infosys (down 2.5 percent) pulled the Nifty IT index lower by 1 percent as investors turned cautious on the stock after a media report said co-founders may be exiting the company.

Adani Ports, GAIL and Wipro were down 1-2 percent followed by ITC, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Tata Motors and SBI whereas Reliance Industries and Maruti gained a percent each.

9:59 am Buzzing: Shares of Reliance Industries gained nearly 2 percent intraday after a brokerage firm reiterated its buy call on the stock.

CLSA, in a report, reiterated its bullish call on the stock with a target of Rs 1,710, implying an upside potential of 29 percent. It places its bet on the developments around its telecom service, Jio.

“After improving voice and data service quality over the past few months, we expect Jio to take the next step to monetisation. Also, we see Jio launching an affordable 4G feature phone within 2QFY18,” the brokerage said in its report.

9:45 am Citi on Godrej Consumer: Citi raised target price of Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) to Rs 1,955 (from Rs 1,640) following increase in target multiple and 2 percent increase in EPS estimates.

“Our implied target multiple works out to 37x FY19 (34x September 18 earlier) – brought closer to peers reflecting Godrej Consumer’s improving outlook and possibly return profile,” the brokerage house said.

Like peers, FY18 could be a better year for GCPL despite GST transition in India, it feels. It estimated double-digit constant currency growth for the company.

9:29 am FII View: Goldman Sachs retained its overweight rating on Indian markets on increased confidence in corporate earnings recovery. The global investment bank expects earnings to grow 14 percent this year and 18 percent next year.

Tracking earnings trajectory, Goldman Sachs raised its Nifty’s 12-month target to 10,400 from 10,000 earlier. “We expect banks to recover from a downgrade cycle with upgrades to next year earnings driven by better NIMs/operating efficiency,” said the report.

Moreover, Goldman Sachs recent earnings revision Lead Indicator suggests EPS revisions in India may turn positive in coming months.

Also read – Buy, Sell, Hold: 3 stocks being tracked by analysts today

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks extended losses in early trade, with the Nifty opening below 9650 level amid consolidation.

Volatility continued in global markets as exit poll in UK showed UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party may not get majority, which means there could be a possibility of hung parliament in the UK after Thursday’s election.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 82.97 points at 31,130.39 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 22.75 points to 9,624.50.

Infosys was the leading loser among Sensex stocks, down 3 percent followed by GAIL, Wipro, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Tata Motors and Tech Mahindra.

Reliance Industries was biggest gainer, up 1.5 percent followed by HUL, Coal India, M&M, L&T, Yes Bank, IOC and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The Indian rupee has seen some correction in early trade. It has opened at 64.27 against the US dollar, down 6 paise compared with previous day’s closing of 64.21 a dollar.

Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said the USD-INR currency pair has been consolidating in a range of 64.20-64.50 against the US dollar.
The rupee should continue to trade in this range with support expected at lower levels, he feels.

Ramesh Sridharan

Ramesh Sridharan

Ramesh Sridharan is our Stock Market Correspondent covering events and daily movements of stock markets in Asia. He is based in Mumbai