Closing Bell: Sensex ends over 200 points lower, Nifty snaps 10,450; auto, banks bleed

3:30 pm Market at Close: Selling pressure in banks and auto stocks, and IT, among others, led to a fall in Indian market, with the Nifty closing below 10,450, while the Sensex plunged over 200 points.

At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 244.08 points or 0.72% at 33812.75, while the Nifty was down 95.20 points or 0.90% at 10435.50. The market breadth was narrow as 1665 shares advanced, against a decline of 1246 shares, while 746 shares were unchanged.

BHEL, Coal India, Tata Power and Indiabulls Housing were the top gainers, while IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, TCS, Bharti Infratel were the top index losers.

3:15 pm Market Check: Selling in the last hour of trade pushed the benchmark indices lower on Monday, with the Sensex losing over 200 points, while the Nifty was below 10,450-mark.

At 15:15 hrs IST, the Sensex is down 204.68 points or 0.60% at 33852.15, and the Nifty down 87.70 points or 0.83% at 10443.00. The market breadth was narrow as 1594 shares advanced, against a decline of 1192 shares, while 869 shares were unchanged.

TCS, HUL, IndusInd Bank and BPCL lost the most on both indices, while BHEL, Wipro, Tata Power and Indiabulls Housing were the top gainers.

2:50 pm IndusInd Bank raises funds: IndusInd Bank said it has raised USD 500 million (about Rs 3,193.75 crore) term loan from overseas lending bodies to expand its business.

The private sector bank has concluded the syndicated term loan facility from a group of overseas investors, it said in a regulatory filing.

The fundraising, along with the funds raised during the ongoing financial year from multilateral institutions ADB and OPIC, will help the bank expand its lending to clients, it said.

The tenor of the loan is for three years and will be used for general banking purposes, it added.

2:30 pm SBI cuts rate: India’s largest bank State Bank of India has given a new year’s surprise to its customers by reducing lending interest rate by 30 basis points (bps) to 8.65 percent.

“Base rate reduced from 08.95% p.a. to 8.65% p.a. w.e.f. 01.01.2018,” SBI said on its website. Base rate is the minimum lending rate below which banks cannot lend.

This may not make a huge impact on the bank but will help a large number of customers who have borrowed loans at base rate (prior to April 2016).

2:10 pm Regulator speak: In Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) last board meeting for 2017, the market regulator approved a slew of reforms, one is formation of a universal exchange. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of BSE discussed this and many more issues.

BSE has been ready for commodity trading since 2015, he said.

Integration of currency trading was quick. Commodities took off by 2004-2005. Although financial markets went down in 2008-2009, the commodities market did not go down till 2012-2013, he added.

Here are the top headlines at 2 pm from Moneycontrol News’ Sakshi Batra

1:45 pm Auto sales: Auto major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) reported an 8 per cent increase in total sales at 39,200 units in December.

It had sold 36,464 units in the same month previous year, M&M said in a statement.

In the domestic market, sales were up 7 per cent to 36,979 units last month compared to 34,411 units in December 2016.

Exports also grew 8 per cent to 2,221 units against 2,053 units in the year-ago month.

1:24 pm Market Check: Mildly lower moves were seen on the Indian market, with the Sensex falling over 50 points, while the Nifty was on the verge of breaching 10,500.

At 13:24 hrs IST, the Sensex is down 53.80 points or 0.16% at 34003.03, and the Nifty down 22.40 points or 0.21% at 10508.30. The market breadth was positive as 1869 shares advanced, against a decline of 813 shares, while 967 shares were unchanged.

Wipro, Tata Power were the top gainers, while HUL and TCS were the top losers.

12:55 pm Management Speak: In an interview with CNBC-TV18, deal maker Cyril Shroff of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas shared his views on the outlook for 2018.

He is bullish on Deal Street and says along with equity issuances, stressed asset sale and consolidation, strategic disinvestment by government and real estate consolidation will be the big themes of 2018.

I think in 2018, the big theme will be a strategic disinvestment by the government for various reasons, he said.

12:30 pm Management Speak: In Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) last board meeting for 2017 on December 28, the market regulator has said that no entity can have stake in more than one mutual fund up to over 10 percent. One instance would be UTI Mutual Fund (MF) where State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda (BoB), Punjab National Bank (PNB), LIC, the sharehnolders, all have their own separate MF units.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Leo Puri, Managing Director of UTI AMC shared his take on what is in-store for UTI MF in 2018.

Cross holdings in AMCs have never been encouraged, he said.

12:10 Buzzing Stock: Shares of Gayatri Projects touched 52-week high of Rs 234.50, rising 3.6 percent intraday Monday as it has won order worth Rs 283 crore.

The company has bagged a new order of Rs 583 crore from National Highways Authority of India.

The contract includes, rehabilitation and upgradation of Cuttack-Angul section of NH-42 (NEW NH-55) to 4-lane in the state of Odisha under NHDP Phase-III on EPC Mode, pkg-1.

This is an addition to the recent project won by company on December 20, 2017 (worth Rs 1139 crore) in joint Venture with Public Joint Stock Company Kyivmetrobud i.e Gayatri-KMB (JV), from National Highways Authority of India under Bharatmala centrally-sponsored and funded road and highways project of the Government of India.

Here are the top headlines at 12 pm from Moneycontrol News’ Sakshi Batra

11:45 am Auto sales: Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) today reported a 10 per cent increase in total sales at 62,899 units in December.

The company had sold 57,164 units in December 2016, HMIL said in a statement.

Domestic sales of the company, however, rose marginally to 40,158 units last month as compared to 40,057 units in December 2016.

11:30 am Market Check: Benchmark indices continue to trade in a tight range, with the Sensex and Nifty holding on to 34,000 and 10,500 levels, respectively. State run banks and pharma stocks are trading higher from Friday’s close. After close to 100% gains last week, the Reliance Communications’ stock is seeing some profit-booking.

11:10 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of Bank of India added nearly 5 percent intraday Monday as it has received fund from government of India.

The bank has received infusion of Rs 2257 crore from Government of India in the form of common equity tier- 1 capital, which is being kept as share application money and would be allotted after following due procedure/conditions for allotment.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 216.70 and 52-week low Rs 103.00 on 17 November, 2017 and 29 December, 2016, respectively.

10:50 am Maruti auto sales: The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) today reported 10.3 per cent increase in total sales at 1,30,066 units in December 2017 compared to 1,17,908 units in the same month of 2016.

The company’s domestic sales stood at 1,19,286 units, up 12.1 per cent from 1,06,414 units in December 2016, MSI said in a statement.

Sales of mini segment cars, including Alto and WagonR, witnessed a 2 per cent rise to 32,146 units during the month under review from 31,527 units in December 2016.

10:30 am Buzzing Stock: Share price of Phoenix Mills rose 6 percent intraday Monday as it has acquired 22.67 percent stake in its subsidiary company.

The company has entered into a share purchase agreement (SPA) with HBS Realtors (HBS) and Graceworks Realty & Leisure (GRLPL) on December 29,
2017 for acquisition of entire 22.67 percent shareholding of HBS in GRLPL, a subsidiary of the company.

Pursuant to the said SPA, the company has acquired entire 22.67 percent equity shareholding of HBS on December 29, 2017.

10:10 am Market Check: Benchmark indices continued to trade flat, with the Nifty holding 10,500-mark. At 10:10 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 24.12 points or 0.07% at 34080.95, and the Nifty up 1.10 points or 0.01% at 10531.80. The market breadth was positive as 1,648 shares advanced, against a decline of 560 shares, while 1,428 shares are unchanged.

Here are the top headlines at 10 am from Moneycontrol News’ Sakshi Batra

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9:45 am Brigade Enterprises gains: Shares of Brigade Enterprises gained 2.5 percent in the early trade on Monday as it has bought 12.95 acre land for Rs 218 crore in Bengaluru.

The company through its wholly owned subsidiary Brigade Infrastructure and Power (BIPL) has acquired a prime property admeasuring 12.95 acre at
Yashwanthpur, North Bangalore for a consideration of Rs 218 crore from SABMiller India,” as per company release.

This is property strategically located to develop an IT park.

9:30 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of Allahabad Bank were up almost 5 percent intraday on Monday as the bank raised Rs 500 crore.

In a notification to the exchanges, the bank said that it raised the money through private placement of Additional Tier 1 (AT 1) perpetual bonds.

The fund raising has been done in a bid to comply with global banking standards under Basel – III norms.

9:15 am Market Opens: Benchmark indices began the New Year on a flat note, but the midcaps were trading higher and outperforming the benchmarks in the opening tick.

At 09:16 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 11.14 points at 34067.97, while the Nifty was down 11.40 points or 0.11% at 10519.30. The market breadth was positive as 576 shares advanced against a decline of 178 shares, while 2,878 shares were unchanged.

Among stocks, State Bank of India (SBI), L&T, Hero MotoCorp and GAIL were the top gainers, while HUL, Wipro and Infosys were the top losers.

In the currency space, Indian rupee opened marginally higher at 63.84 per dollar on Monday versus 63.87 Friday.

Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, “The rupee will trade on a flat note. We expect the spot USD-INR pair to trade in a range of 63.50-64.”

According to Ajay Manglunia of Edelweiss, the volatility in the bond markets is expected to persist over the next few sessions.”