Market Live: Sensex trades lower, Nifty below 10,100; RBI rate decision eyed

10:25 am Rupee Trade: The rupee depreciated by 3 paise to 64.41 against the dollar at the interbank forex market today ahead of the announcement of RBI’s monetary policy amid foreign fund outflows.

Dealers said increased demand for the American currency from importers also weighed on the rupee but dollar’s weakness against other currencies overseas limited the losses.

Yesterday, the rupee had struggled to hold on to early strong gains and eventually ended the day almost flat at 64.38 against the US dollar.

10:15 am Buzzing Stocks: Shares of Plastiblends India and The Byke Hospitality fell 2-8 percent intraday on the back of weak September quarter (Q2FY18) numbers.

Byke Hospitality has reported 10 percent decline in its Q2FY18 net profit at Rs 5.2 crore against Rs 5.76 crore in a year ago period.

Revenue of the company was down 45 percent at Rs 29.4 crore and EBITDA was down 6 percent at Rs 11 crore.

The company announced acquisition of the 3 hotels, The Byke Nature Villas (35 rooms) in Shimla, The Byke Puja Samudra (42 rooms) in Kovalam and The Byke Brightlands Resort (63 rooms) in Matheran.

9:50 am LIC Investment: Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) said it has invested Rs 44,000 crore in the equity markets between April-November this year, a rise of 52 per cent over the year-ago period.

It had invested around Rs 29,000 crore in April-November period in the previous fiscal.

In the first half of the current fiscal, the life insurance major had more than doubled its investment in equities to Rs 39,224 crore from Rs 18,000 crore in the same period last fiscal.

“This year the government’s disinvestment program has picked up in the first half and, we, being the long term investor have invested there,” its chairman V K Sharma told reporters here today.

In the previous fiscal, LIC had invested Rs 47,000 crore into equities.

9:40 am RCom in focus: Credit rating agency Fitch has withdrawn ratings of debt-ridden Reliance Communications for commercial reasons.

“Fitch has chosen to withdraw the ratings on Rcom for commercial reasons. Accordingly, Fitch will no longer provide ratings or analytical coverage for RCom,” it said in a statement.

RCom also informed stock exchanges that Fitch “has withdrawn ‘C’ rating of the company’s Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency Issuer Default Ratings and Bonds listed in Singapore Stock Exchange due to commercial reasons”.

9:34 am USFDA Observations: Shares of Shilpa Medicare declined nearly 6 percent in morning as it has received 10 observations from USFDA.

The company has received 483 observations from the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) in relation to SEZ formulation facilities situated at Jadcherla, Telangana (near Hyderabad).

The company has received total 10 observations, which includes 7 observations for improvement in procedures and practices and 3 observations are related to setting of analytical specifications, test procedures and method validation.

9:25 am Buzzing: Shares of Tata Communications gained more than 1 percent in early trade after it has been selected as global loT connectivity partner by International fleet management application provider.

DRVR, international fleet management application provider, has selected Tata Communications as it global loT (Internet of Things) connectivity partner to help achieve its objective of making Asia’s vehicle fleets the smartest and most cost efficient in the world.

Vehicles in fleets using DRVR technology have been fitted with Tata Communications’ MOVE-IOT Connect SIM technology.

9:20 am IPO opens: The Rs 650-crore initial public offer of Future Supply Chain Solutions has opened for subscription today, with a price band of Rs 660-664 per share.

ALSO READ: Future Supply Chain Solutions raises Rs 195 crore from anchor investors

The public issue of 97,84,570 equity shares will close on December 8.

The issue comprises an offer for sale of up to 78,27,656 equity shares by Griffin Partners and up to 19,56,914 shares by the promoter, Future Enterprises. The offer will constitute up to 24.43 percent of the post-offer paid-up equity share capital.

Future Supply will not receive any proceeds from the offer for sale.

Bids can be made for a minimum lot of 22 equity shares and in multiples of 22 equity shares thereafter.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks extended losses in opening on Wednesday, with the Nifty falling below 10,100 level, dragged by banking and financials as investors maintained cautious stance ahead of RBI policy decision.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 77.36 points at 32,725.08 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 31.90 points to 10,086.40.

About 692 shares declined against 451 advancing shares on the BSE.

Eicher Motors, Hindalco Industries, Bajaj Finance, Yes Bank, Indiabulls Housing, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, HUL, PNB, Bank of Baroda and Coal India were early losers while Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Cipla, IndusInd Bank and Dr Reddy’s Labs were gainers.

Nifty Midcap was down 0.4 percent.
Dish TV, Hathway Cable and Voltas were down 1-4 percent. Balkrishna Industries, Shree Renuka, Balrampur Chini, Bajaj Hindusthan, Madras Fertilizers, RCF, Mangalore Chemicals, Prism Cement and JK Cement gained 1-6 percent.