Nifty slips below 8,600; GST Bill in focus

Index heavyweights RIL, HDFC and ITC were among the top losers in early trades

Markets continued to remain weak after the first hour of trade with FMCG majors leading the decline.

At 10:30am, the the S&P BSE Sensex was down 140 points at 27,842 and the Nifty50 was down 33 points at 8,590. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were down 0.4%-0.7% each. Market breadth was weak with 1302 losers and 792 gainers on the BSE.

FMCG major ITC was among the top losers down over 2% on concerns that the effective tax rate on the goods manufacture would increase substantially after implementation of the amendments to the GST Bill. Its peer Hindustan Unilever was down nearly 1%.

IT majors Infosys and TCS were down 0.7%-1% each.

Among other index heavyweights, Reliance Indsutries and HDFC were down over 1% each.

Zydus Wellness was up over 1% after it reported 20% rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 to Rs 23.5 crore on the back of a 12% rise in consolidated total income.

Torrent Power was down nearly 2% after the company reported nearly 80% drop in consolidated net profit at Rs 46.52 crore for the quarter ended June 2016.
_________________________
(updated at 9:30am)
Benchmark share indices opened lower, amid weak global cues, ahead of the debate on the Goods and Services Tax Bill in the Rajya Sabha later today.

At 9:30am, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 128 points at 27,854 and the Nifty50 was down 32 points at 8,591.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities worth Rs 536 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

HCL Technologies was up 4% after the IT major reported 6% growth in revenue and profit for the quarter ended June 2016. The company has also forecasted revenue growth of 12-14% for the current fiscal. However, TCS and Infosys were down 0.7% each.

Consumer-led stocks which had gained in the previous session witnessed profit taking. ITC and Hindustan Unilever were down 0.6%-1% each.

Among financials, mortgage lender HDFC extended losses and was down 1.3% while HDFC Bank eased 0.7%.

State-owned engineering major BHEL was trading with marginal losses on reports of downgrade by a foreign brokerage.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Most Asian stocks were trading with losses with shares in Hong Kong and Japan losing the most. Japanese shares weakened amid a stronger yen on reports that the with the benchmark Nikkei down nearly 1%. Hang Seng was down 1.7% while Straits Times eased 0.7%. However, shares in CHina were trading flat with positive bias. The benchmark Shanghai Composite was up 0.2%.

US stocks edged lower on Tuesday on concerns about economic growth while weakness in global crude oil prices also weighed on investor sentiment. Both the global crude oil benchmarks, Nymex and Brent slipped below $40 per barrel. The Dow Jones ended down 0.5% at 18,314, the S&P 500 closed 0.6% lower at 2,157 and the Nasdaq dropped 0.9% to settle at 5,138.