Market Live: Sensex struggles below 31000; Nifty choppy ahead of June FO expiry

MUMBAI Operations at one of three terminals at India’s largest container port JNPT, on the outskirts of India’s commercial hub of Mumbai, have been disrupted by the global ransomware attack, the port said on Wednesday.

The terminal impacted is operated by Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk, which said separately on Tuesday that the cyber attack had caused outages in its computer systems globally.

The attack, similar to the ransomware that infected more than 300,000 computers last month, also affected computers at Russia’s biggest oil company, Ukranian banks and multinational firms.

1:25 pm Nomura bullish on Maruti: While retaining a buy call on Maruti Suzuki India, Nomura has raised target price on the stock to Rs 8,824 (from Rs 7,412 earlier), implying 22.8 percent upside as it believes the stock will continue to trade at premium valuations.

“The stock currently trades at 25.7x FY18 EPS. With FY18-19 EPS CAGR of around 20 percent, secular growth trajectory, healthy return on equity/return on capital employed (23/31 percent in FY19) and consistently improving free cash flow due to limited capex requirements, we believe MSIL will continue to trade at premium valuations,” it explained while lifting target P/E to 25x FY19 EPS (from 21x earlier).

1:10 pm De-stocking impact: While retaining neutral call on Havells India with a target price of Rs 500, Citi said the de-stocking impact on company will likely be short-lived. The stock was down 1.5 percent intraday.

It sees de-stocking across the board impacting Q1FY18 revenue.

The research house said distribution channel across products (from light electrical products to large appliances) is seeing varying degree of de-stocking in the run-up to GST. The extent of de-stocking is higher in large appliances (room ACs) against smaller appliances.

However to counter this, the electric equipment manufacturer has started issuing separate excise invoices (which shows excise paid separately and will enable dealers to claim input tax credit).

Havells’ dealers in core business (light electrical and small consumer durables) keep only 15-25 days of inventory. As a result, in core business, destocking will likely have limited impact only, the research house feels.

12.43 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to trade in tight range in afternoon as traders await expiry of June futures & options contracts on Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 56.27 points at 30,901.98 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 7.05 points to 9,504.35.

The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices continued to outperform benchmarks, rising 0.3 percent each as about 1,283 shares advanced against 1,076 declining shares on the exchange.

11:54 am DB on NTPC: With reiterating a buy call on NTPC, Deutsche Bank believes that the company is at an inflection point of stepping up commissioning from 2 to 5-6GW per annum.

Capitalisation doubling in FY18 and FY19 (overtaking capex) should improve return on equity by 200 basis points – leading to a valuation re-rating cycle, similar to FY14-17 cycle in Power Grid, it feels.

According to the research house, NTPC could now acquire stressed independent power plants (with power purchase agreements) from banks using cheap leverage to improve returns.

Deutsche said NTPC underperformed Sensex by 13 percent in one year, making its call wrong, due to offer for sale by the government to sell 10 percent stake; low profit growth of 2 percent in second half of FY17 due to GCV impact; negative effect from solar tariffs dipping below NTPC’s average tariffs; and now flat generation target for FY18.

11:40 am Buzzing: Shares of Cadila Healthcare gained over a percent intraday as investors cheered drug regulator’s nod to its drug.

The company said that it received a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nod for Oxybutynin tablets from its Moraiya unit. This drug is useful for treating urinary and bladder difficulties.

This follows a spate of approvals that the company has been receiving from the said facility.

The estimated sale for the tablet is believed to be to the tune of USD 150.9 million, the company told the exchanges in a filing.

11.29 am Market Check: Benchmark indices continued to consolidate in late morning trade but the broader markets gained strength, with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.4 percent each.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 27.79 points at 30,930.46 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 1.35 points to 9,510.05 despite positive breadth.

About six shares advanced for every five shares falling on the BSE.

Reliance Industries, Asian Paints and SBI were top losers among Sensex stocks, down 1.5-2 percent whereas ICICI Bank, Maruti and Tata Steel gained 1-2 percent.

11:00 am Listing: Healthcare company Eris Lifesciences is set to make a debut on exchanges on Thursday, June 29. The issue price is fixed at higher end of price band of Rs 600-603 per share.

The initial public offer of the company was opened for three-day bidding during June 16-20 and was oversubscribed 3.29 times due to weak sentiment and poor response from high networth individuals.

The portion reserved for qualified institutional buyers was oversubscribed 4.68 times and retail investors 3.51 times but the portion set aside for non institutional investors was subscribed only 45 percent.

The Ahmedabad-based pharma company raised Rs 1,741 crore through the issue, including Rs 779 crore from 21 anchor investors. It was an offer for sale by existing shareholders.

10:47 am FII View: Neelkanth Mishra of Credit Suisse said after steadily outperforming global equities in USD terms over January-April 2017, Indian equities underperformed in May & June.

In 2017 so far, India still ranks 6th among 50 major markets, helped by rupee appreciating 5 percent against USD, he added.

He still prefers sectors with good EPS growth like metals, energy, industrials and utilities over pharma, cement, staples & telecom.

10.38 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to be volatile in morning trade, with the Nifty hovering around 9500 level ahead of expiry of June derivative contracts on Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 30.08 points at 30,928.17 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 5.70 points to 9,505.70.

The broader markets recouped early losses, trading flat with a positive bias as the market breadth turned positive.

9:53 am Buzzing: Motherson Sumi Systems share price gained nearly a percent in early trade after the shareholders have approved the issuance of bonus shares to existing shareholders through postal ballot on Tuesday.

The company has fixed July 7 as record date for purpose of the bonus issue.

Hence, the register of members and share transfer books will remain closed on July 7.

The board of directors of the company, on May 19, has recommended the issue of bonus shares in the ratio of one bonus shares against the two existing shares.

9:35 am F&O: Nifty rolls were at 47.81 percent, higher than 3-month average of 42.5 percent towards the end of June series while the market wide rollover of 37.01 percent was lower than the 3-month average of 39.1 percent, ICICIdirect said.

It further said Nifty total futures open interest has increased considerably by more than 5 percent on Tuesday due to fresh additions in the July series. Nifty June series witnessed closure of 6.2 million shares while July series added almost 7.4 million shares, which have prompted sharp increase in Nifty rollover. The current open interest in Nifty is just 13.2 shares, which is relatively low with just two days to settlement. As expected, the roll spread has also come under pressure and it is currently at 14 points from 19 points seen on Tuesday.

According to the research house, F&O data is clearly suggesting fresh short build-up in the next series.

9:30 am Monsoon: Met Department told CNBC-TV18 that most parts of country have received well-distributed rainfall while there has been lower-than-estimated rainfall in region around Himalayas.

According to the department, 79 percent of the country has received normal-to-above-normal rainfall while rainfall deficiency is mostly concentrated towards north east.

Met Department is seeing a steady progress in rainfall in central India and expects average July rainfall at 96 percent.

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9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks extended losses in early trade Wednesday, with the Nifty opening below 9500 on further correction in PSU banks, healthcare and FMCG stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 19.27 points at 30,938.98 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 27.70 points to 9,483.70.

ITC, SBI, Bank of Baroda, L&T, Sun Pharma, Lupin and Dr Reddy’s Labs were under pressure while Infosys, ICICI Bank and HDFC continued to support the market.

Nifty Midcap lost 0.5 percent as about two shares declined for every share rising.

Vijaya Bank, OBC, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank, Escorts, Berger Paints, Bajaj Finance, DHFL and LIC Housing fell 1-2 percent whereas Jaiprakash Associates, Jaypee Infra, Adani Enterprises, Videocon Industries, Fortis Healthcare and Dish TV gained 1-15 percent.

The Indian rupee opened marginally lower at 64.55 per dollar against previous close of 64.53.

Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity feesl the rupee will take cues from weak domestic equity market and will trade sideways to negative. He expects the spot USD-INR pair to trade in a range of 64.40-64.80/dollar.
Asian indexes traded mostly lower after the softer lead from Wall Street, with the vote on a bill to replace Obamacare in the US delayed.

The Indian port has been trying to clear containers manually, but operational capacity has dropped to a third at the terminal, Anil Diggikar, chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), told Reuters.

“This is fallout of global cyber attack. We are hopeful that operations will normalize in a day,” he said.

Containers are piling up outside the port due to delay in loading and unloading at Gateway Terminals India, he said.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Euan Rocha and Neil Fullick)