Nifty holds 7,800 amid weak trades; HDFC up 1%

ICICI Bank continues to be the top loser along with HDFC Bank while HDFC gained post Q4 earnings

Benchmark share indices continued to exhibit weakness in late trades on Monday with ICICI Bank leading the decline after a huge provisioning raised asset quality concerns.

At 2:45pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 168 points at 25,439 and the Nifty was down 46    points at 7,804. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap index was up 1% and Smallcap index gained 0.2%. Market breadth was negative with 1294 losers and 1165 gainers on the BSE.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers in equities worth Rs 205 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

A private survey showed that India's manufacturing output rose at a slower pace in April as rise in new orders lost steam. The Nikkei purchasing managers’ index (PMI) survey showed that rate of manufacturing growth decreased to 50.50 in April from the eight-month high of 52.4 in March.

Further, a report by Standard Chartered indicated that India's GDP is likely to grow 7.4% during the current fiscal on the back of increased consumer spending, supported by pay commission awards and lagged impact of a good monsoon.


STOCK TRENDS

HDFC was up nearly 1% after the mortgage lender reported a net profit of Rs 3,460 crore for the quarter ended March 2016 compared with Rs 2,646 crore in the same quarter last year.  

ICICI Bank was down 4%. The private lender last week reported a 76% drop in net profit for the January-March quarter to Rs 702 crore, as it set aside additional contingency reserve of Rs 3,600 crore. This additional reserve is to account for an increase in bad loans that could arise from exposure to the iron & steel, power, mining, rigs and cement sectors.

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation cracked 5% after the budget carrier posted a flat net profit of Rs 579 crore the fourth quarter on the back of rupee depreciation and pressure on yields owing to rising competition. The airline in the same quarter last year the airline had recorded a net profit of Rs 577 crore.

Vedanta Group firm, THL Zinc Ltd, has sought a rollover of a controversial $1.25-billion loan, taken from the conglomerate’s cash-rich oil explorer Cairn India in July 2014. The loan, which was extended for two years at floating rate of three per cent plus LIBOR, was to be repaid by July 2016. Vedanta surged over 6%.

Lupin is trading nearly 1% higher amid reports that the pharma major plans to strengthen its branded and speciality business in the US.