Bears tighten grip on markets; weak eco data, oil prices weigh

Both the Sensex and Nifty ended near their 20-month closing lows

Indian equity indices ended lower for the third straight session amid rising concerns over world economic growth coupled with the relentless fall in international crude oil prices.
Besides, the data released by the government showed that India’s merchandise exports shrunk for the 13th straight month in December thus further accentuated the woes.

The S&P BSE Sensex ended down 267 points at 24,188 and the Nifty50 ended down 87 points to quote at 7,351.

According to Shreyash Devalkar, Fund Manager – Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund, “There seem to be no signs of a respite with the selling pressure keeping benchmark indices in the red. After opening the day on a negative note, benchmark indices extended their fall to close near the day’s low with losses of over 1%.”

He further said, “Investors continue to be worried about the state of the global economic recovery and negative macro-economic data only served to further stoke these fears. A 14.7% fall in exports in the month of December, 2015 coupled with a widening of the trade deficit by 27.1% during the same period put already spooked investors in a cautious mood. All sectoral indices on the NSE traded in the red with energy and media stocks leading the pack of losers.”

India’s exports fell in December due to tepid global demand and decline in international commodity prices.

Exports fell to $22.29 billion against $26.15 billion a year ago in December 2014. The national trade deficit has narrowed to $99 billion cumulatively for months leading up to December in the current financial year.

Brent crude prices fell on Monday to as low to $27.67/barrel early in the day, its lowest since 2003 after international sanctions against Iran were lifted over the weekend, thus allowing Tehran to enter the oil market and flood the already flooded oil market with more oil.

KEY STOCKS

The fall in the markets is today attributed mainly to the oil and gas shares followed by rate sensitive stocks.

The decline in the oil prices in the international markets has put pressure on the energy stocks. RIL, ONGC, Cairn (India) all cracked between 2-8% each. Even the OMCs could not escape the heat. HPCL, BPCL, IOC slipped between 2-4% each.

From the banking and financial pack, HDFC twins, ICICI bank, Axis Bank, SBI dropped between 0.5-1.5% each as they continue to feel the pressure on global slowdown.

Wipro gained 0.5% after the Q3 IT services revenues came marginally below the street estimates. Dollar revenues witnessed a flat sequential growth at $1,838 million. On the other hand, its peers TCS and Infosys are trading higher by 0.5% each

A decline in the steel prices has pushed Tata Steel to cut 1,050 jobs in Britian. However, the stock  gained nearly 2%.

Among other shares, Reliance Communications and Reliance Jio on Monday announced agreements for trading and sharing of scarce airwaves, or radio frequency spectrum, in the 800 MHz band, covering virtually the entire country. However, owing to the weakness in the markets, Reliance Communications ended 3% lower.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian markets ended lower as volatility in Chinese economy and decline in global crude prices put pressure on Asia. Nikkei 225 ended 1.1% down while Hang Seng finished 1.5% lower. However, Shanghai Composite recovered and finished 0.4% higher.

The European markets opened in green, however, soon slipped in the negative terrain on global cues. All the major European indices are down between 0.2-1% each.