Markets trade near their lows of the day; Nifty on brink to breach 6000 mark

The domestic equity markets have plunged further, though a spurt of buying was witnessed in early trade but again it has faded on broad based selling and the benchmarks are now trading at their day's low with BSE Sensex breaching 20100 mark while Nifty marginally higher from 6000 mark. The rate sensitives are once again dragging the markets lower weighed by the rising food inflation worries, some consolation is coming from the return in buying in the defensive sector FMCG but that too is meager to impact the markets in positive direction. However the global cues remain mixed unable to give any direction to the markets as half of the Asian markets were still trading in red while the US future indices were showing uptick in the screen trade. Back home on the sectoral front, Auto was the main laggard followed by metal and banking while FMCG sector remains the lone gainer.Some upmove was seen in the Anil Ambani group companies after the report of him raising stake in one of his company Reliance Infra.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20,092.63, down by 92.11 points or 0.46%. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth was extremely weak with just 961 stocks advancing against 1484 declines, while, 90 shares remained unchanged.

The broader indices were underperforming the benchmarks, BSE Midcap index was down by 0.92% while the small cap index has edged lower by 0.74%.

The FMCG sector was the lone gainer on the BSE sectoral front, while, Auto down by 1.70%, Metal down by1.19%, Bankex down by 1.07%, CD down by 1.01% and PSU was down by 0.62%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Infra up by 1.34%, ICICI Bank up by 0.99%, RCom up by 0.82%, Sterlite Industries up by 0.46% and NTPC was up by 0.37%.

On the other hand M&M down by 2.66%, Tata Motors down by 2.63%, HDFC Bank down by 2.18%, RIL down by 1.56% and SBI down by 1.54% were the top losers on the index.

Riding on the strong growth seen in the current fiscal so far, the direct tax revenue of the union government in the April-December 2010 period has registered a growth of 19.47% to touch Rs 2,98,958 crore, compared with Rs 2,50,232 crore in the corresponding period of the last financial year. At Rs 2,98,958 crore, direct tax revenue has reached 69.53% of the budgeted target of Rs 4,30,000 crore this year. The finance ministry however is understood to have raised the target.

Looking at the sub-segments, the strong growth seen in the April-December period was largely contributed by high buoyancy seen in the corporate income-tax collections. Over the period under review, tax collections from corporates jumped 22.07% to Rs 2,03,244 crore, against Rs 1,66,503 crore in the corresponding period last year. This also indicates the good health of India Inc and raises probability of continued strong growth over rest of the fiscal.

On the other hand, collections of personal income-tax, including securities transaction tax (STT), residual fringe benefit tax and banking cash transaction tax, increased by 10.96% to touch Rs 92,295 crore, compared with Rs 83,178 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue from the STT alone increased by 11.97% to touch Rs 5,117 crore from Rs 4,570 crore last year.

Banking on the continued buoyancy in direct tax collections seen so far, union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is understood to have raised the direct tax collection target for financial year by Rs 20,000 crore from Rs 4.3 lakh crore set in the budget to Rs 4.5 lakh crore. The finance minister had a meeting with the officials of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and wherein it was decided that given the stronger-than-anticipated growth and resulting higher tax buoyancy, direct tax revenue can be increased by at least Rs 20,000 crore.

SARIAH 50 which opened at 1,236.50, is currently trading up at 1,230.75, down by 5.76 points or 0.47% from its previous close of 1,236.51.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,009.25, down by 39.00 points or 0.64%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HCL Technologies up by 2.06%,Sun Pharma up by 1.73%, Reliance Infra up by 0.81%, Cipla up by 0.80% and GAIL was up by 0.60%.

The top losers of the index were Sesa Goa down by 3.92%, Tata Motors down by 2.88%,  Axis Bank down by 2.62%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.54% and SAIL was down by 2.32%

The Asian markets were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite was up by 1.37%, Hang Seng up by 0.09% Nikkei 225 up by 0.15%, and KLSE Composite was up by 0.15%

On the flip side Jakarta Composite was down by 2.12%, Taiwan Weighted was down by 1.32% and Straits Times was down by 0.40%.

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