Benchmarks hover near day's low

Key indices were hovering near day's low in afternoon trade amid weak global cues. At 13:15 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 382.98 points or 1.01% at 37,707.66. The Nifty 50 index was down 105.40 points or 0.92% at 11,409.80. The Sensex was trading below the psychologically important 38,000 mark.

Global shares witnessed steep selling pressure amid reports US could soon announce a new round of tariffs on Chinese imports, setting the stage for possible reprisals by Beijing. Fresh weakness in the rupee also spoiled investors sentiment in the domestic market.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.41%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.07%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was negative. On BSE, 1189 shares rose and 1343 shares fell. A total of 170 shares were unchanged.

HDFC (down 2.31%), NTPC (down 1.71%), State Bank of India (down 1.7%), HDFC Bank (down 1.54%), Axis Bank (down 1.46%), ITC (down 1.55%) and ICICI Bank (down 1.43%), were the major Sensex losers.

Bharti Airtel (up 1.73%), Tata Steel (up 0.80%), IndusInd Bank (up 0.14%) and Power Grid Corporation of India (up 0.12%), were the major Sensex gainers.

Infosys was down 0.75%. The company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Fluido, the leading salesforce advisor and consulting partner in Nordics and a recognized leader in cloud consulting, implementation and training services. Executing on its strategy to help clients navigate the next in their digital transformation journey, this acquisition strengthens Infosys' position as a leading Salesforce enterprise cloud services provider, and enhances its ability to provide clients an unparalleled cloud-first transformation. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 14 September 2018.

Wipro was up 0.39%. The company said its arm signed an agreement with Mercury Network to jointly offer appraisal management platform systems to customers in the financial services space. These include banks, mortgage/lending companies, credit unions, underwriting and appraisal management companies. As part of the agreement, Mercury Network, one of the industry's largest appraisal order management platforms, will be integrated with Wipro's NetOxygen Loan Origination System (LOS) platform. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 14 September 2018.

Reliance Industries was down 1.50%. The company said its unit Reliance Retail Ventures purchased an additional 3.10% stake in Genesis Colors (GCL) for a consideration of Rs 8.39 crore, taking its total stake in the readymade garment wholesaler and retailer to 19.63%. Accordingly, the aggregate equity shareholding in GCL stands at 69.1%. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 14 September 2018.

GCL was incorporated in November 1998 and is in the business of retailing and wholesale of branded readymade garments, bags, footwear and accessories directly and through its subsidiary/Joint Ventures. This acquisition adds to the existing portfolio of branded fashion retail outlets.

In the foreign exchange market, the rupee edged lower against the dollar. The partially convertible rupee was hovering at 72.465, compared with its close of 71.86 during the previous trading session.

On the economic front, merchandise exports in August 2018 were $27.84 billion, as compared to $23.36 billion in August 2017, exhibiting a positive growth of 19.21%. In rupee terms, exports were Rs 1,93,624.74 crore in August 2018, as compared to Rs 1,49,398.90 crore in August 2017, registering a positive growth of 29.60%. Imports in August 2018 were $45.24 billion (Rs 3,14,597.54 crore), which was 25.41% higher in dollar terms and 36.34 % higher in rupee terms over imports of $36.07 billion (Rs 2,30,737.96 crore) in August 2017.

The trade deficit for August 2018 was estimated at $17.39 billion as against the deficit of $12.72 billion in August 2017. Taking merchandise and services together, overall trade deficit for April-August 2018-19 is estimated at $ 47.72 billion as compared to $38.95 billion in April-August 2017-18.

India's overall exports (merchandise and services combined) in April-August 2018-19 are estimated to be $221.83 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 20.70% over the same period last year. Overall imports in April-August 2018-19 are estimated to be $269.54 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 21.01% over the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the Indian government late on Friday reportedly announced a slew of steps aimed at stemming a steep decline in the rupee, and it left the door open to announcing more measures. After an economic review meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India's finance minister reportedly said the government plans to take measures to cut down "non-necessary" imports, ease overseas borrowing norms for the manufacturing sector and relax rules around banks raising masala bonds, or rupee-denominated overseas bonds. Jaitley said manufacturing entities will be permitted to make use of external commercial borrowings (ECBs) of up to $50 million with a minimum maturity of one year, down from three years earlier.

Overseas, European stocks traded lower Monday amid renewed fears over an escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Asian shares were negative amid reports over the weekend that the US could be imposing new tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods as early as this week. According to reports, the new round of tariffs on Chinese goods was being readied ahead of the scheduled trade talks with Beijing, in line with an earlier report that said the White House was set to impose the tariffs at 10% instead of the earlier number of 25%. The media then followed up with another report on Sunday citing Chinese officials saying that Beijing could decline to participate in the proposed trade talks with the US if Washington goes ahead with imposing the additional tariffs on Chinese imports.

US stocks ended almost unchanged on Friday, though slight gains were enough to give the S&P 500 its fifth straight positive session.

On the data front, US retail sales rose a scant 0.1% in August, the government said Friday. Meanwhile, the import price index sank 0.6% in August, marking the second straight month and the biggest drop in 2-1/2 years for the cost of goods imported into the country, largely reflecting lower oil prices. A report on industrial production for August showed a rise of 0.4%, the Federal Reserve reported, representing the third monthly increase. Separately, the confidence of Americans in the US economy and their own well-being rose toward the end of summer and stood near a 14-year high. Business inventories rose 0.6% in July.

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