Market Live: Sensex, Nifty open higher amid volatility; Divis Labs, Sun Pharma dip

10:15 am SEBI’s action: To stop unauthorised trading activities by brokers in their clients’ accounts, markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday asked brokers to store all records of orders placed by clients which are accepted in a court of law. These records include written documents signed by the client, recording of telephone conversations, emails from authorised email IDs, log for online transactions, SMSs or any other form of proof that is legally verifiable.

10:05 am 5G service: The government has formed a high-level forum to guide India to start 5G service by 2020, a technology that will deliver wireless broadband speed of about 10,000 mbps in urban areas and 1,000 mbps in rural belts, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said on Tuesday.

In a bid to facilitate research and development activities for 5G service rollout, the government is looking at setting up a Rs 500-crore support fund.

“We have created a high-level 5G forum that will work on vision mission and goals of 5G service in the country. When the world will roll out 5G in 2020, I believe India will be at par with them,” Sinha said.

10:00 am Tepid Listing: ICICI Lombard General Insurance listed at Rs 646.50 per share on the NSE, down 2.2 percent from issue price of Rs 661 per share.

9:55 am RCom vs Ericsson case: The insolvency court has adjourned the hearing of the case between Reliance Communications (RCom) and Ericsson to October 6.

RCom will file its reply to Ericsson’s petition before the next hearing and the former will be heard in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on October 6, according to CNBC TV18 reports.

In a stock exchange filing on September 13, RCom said Ericsson India has filed a petition under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) to recover Rs 491.41 crore from the company. “Ericsson has also filed similar petitions against Reliance Infratel Limited and Reliance Telecom Limited, subsidiaries of the company for recovery of an amount of Rs 534.75 crore and Rs 129.34 crore respectively,” the company filing said.

9:53 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks erased opening gains amid consolidation. The Sensex was down 33.93 points at 31,565.83 and the Nifty fell 15.25 points to 9,856.25.

About two shares advanced for every falling on the BSE.

9:48 am Yellen speech: The Federal Reserve needs to continue gradual rate hikes despite broad uncertainty about the path of inflation, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Tuesday in remarks that acknowledged the central bank’s struggles to forecast one of its key policy objectives.

It is possible, Yellen said, that the Fed may have “misspecified” its models for inflation, and “misjudged” key facts like the underlying strength of the labour market and whether inflation expectations are as stable as they seem, and central bankers need to remain open to that possibility as they decide on policy.

Still, recent low inflation was likely a reflection of factors that would fade over time and despite uncertainties, it “would be imprudent to keep monetary policy on hold until inflation is back to 2 percent,” Yellen said in a 37-page address to the National Association for Business Economics

9:45 am Pre-opening: ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company share price settled at Rs 651 in pre-opening trade on the National Stock Exchange, down 1.5 percent from its issue price of Rs 661.

9:40 am Rupee: The Indian rupee depreciated further today, falling 6 paise to 65.51 against the United States Dollar, compared with previous closing value of 65.45.

9:37 am Rollovers ahead of F&O expiry: Nifty rollovers were at 31.13 percent on Tuesday, lower than 3-month average of 37.67 percent, ICICIdirect said.

The market wide rollover was at 37.65 percent versus 3-month average of 35.5 percent.

Highest rollover was observed in Dewan Housing Finance (62 percent), Dabur (59 percent), Glenmark Pharma (55 percent), Biocon (55 percent) and Muthoot Finance (49 percent).

With just two days to settlement, rollover activity was significantly low in stocks like OFSS, Divis Lab, Colgate, NIIT Tech and Repco Home Finance.

Rollover in the Nifty picked up momentum due to fresh addition in the next series while roll spread declined further. Nifty September series witnessed closure of 1.9 million shares while the October series added more than 3 million shares, which prompted an increase in Nifty rollover. The current open interest in Nifty is close to 17 million shares, which is marginally high compared to the last couple of series, ICICIdirect said.

9:35 am Buzzing: Shares of Petron Engineering Construction was locked at 5 percent upper circuit on order win from JSW Steel.

There were pending buy orders of 20,115 shares, with no sellers available.

The company has received purchase order from JSW Steel for supply, fabrication, erection & alignment of prefabricated steel structure for Blast Furnace#2 and raw material handling system (RMHS) conveyor gallery & junction house at Dolvi, Raigad, Maharashtra, India for an approximately value of Rs 280 crore (Including GST),” as per company release.

9:31 am China’s industrial profit growth: Annual profits at China’s industrial companies rose 24 percent in August, accelerating from the previous month in an indication economic growth remains in good heart even as signs emerge of fading momentum following a robust first half.

The upbeat earnings is another sweetener for authorities as Beijing focuses on stripping out financial risks from years of debt-fueled growth and keeping the economy on a steady footing ahead of a crucial party gathering next month.

Profits in August jumped 24 percent to 672 billion yuan ($ 101.21 billion), the biggest percentage jump since the January-Feb period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday. Annual profit growth was 16.5 percent in July.

9:25 am Macro problems: Amid reports of a fiscal stimulus to boost the sagging economy, a foreign brokerage has warned the present macro problems are due to higher spending and not lack of it and also not due to low revenue receipts and hence a pump priming maybe counterproductive this time around.

“The fiscal stress is more a result of excess spending thus far, which has not left much room for spending in the remaining months: it can rise only 1.5 per cent y-o-y in August-March versus 23.1 per cent in April-July to meet the FY18 budgeted spending target.

“Therefore, a fiscal stimulus may not be so much to boost growth as to prevent a bigger drag,” Nomura India chief economist Sonal Verma has said in a report.

Noting that the current fiscal trends suggest spending is to blame, not revenue, she said revenue collection for April-July was only 2.1 per cent below the historical run- rate, but better than in recent years.

9:20 am Non-life insurer to debut: ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company is set to debut on the bourses today. It has set final issue price at Rs 661 per share, the higher end of price band.

Analysts don’t expect strong listing gains as the initial share sale offer that ended last week was oversubscribed 3 times. In addition, equity markets have been subdued from last week, they said.

The reserved portion of qualified institutional investors has oversubscribed 8.17 times while the retail category showed a subscription of 1.22 times and non-institutional investors 0.82 times.

The Rs 5,700-crore public issue, which was opened during September 15-19, had a price band at Rs 651-661 per share.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance is a joint venture between ICICI Bank and Canadian NRI Prem Watsa-promoted Fairfax Financial Holdings.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened mildly higher amid volatility on Wednesday, ahead of expiry of September derivative contracts tomorrow.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 37.18 points at 31,636.94 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 5 points to 9,876.50.

About four shares advanced for every share falling on the BSE.

Sun Pharma lost 2 percent post AGM. Divis Labs fell 7 percent on USFDA observations for unit 2. Dr Reddy’s Labs was also under pressure.

The Nifty Midcap was up 0.4 percent on positive breadth.
Edelweiss Financial, Shriram Transport, Indiabulls Ventures, RCF, FACT, Den Networks, Hathway Cable, Bajaj Hindusthan and Balrampur Chini gained 1-10 percent while DHFL and REC were under pressure.