Bloodbath on D-Street: Sensex tumbles 651 points on FII outflows

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Mumbai, Sept 3:  

Jittery investors pulled down the BSE benchmark Sensex by 651 points to 18,234.66 on Tuesday after the rupee depreciated below 68 against the dollar.

Similarly, the 50-share NSE index Nifty was down 209 points at 5,341.

The entire sectoral index on BSE tumbled with the banking index being hit the most followed by consumer durables and realty.

Banking index was down 5.06 per cent, followed by consumer durables 4.61 per cent, realty 4.39 per cent and FMCG 3.89 per cent.

Rupee depreciation

The sharp depreciation in rupee may widen the current account deficit further, posing a major challenge to the Government which is battling to revive the economic slowdown.

Vaibhav Agrawal, Vice-President (Research), Angel Broking, said: "The economic fundamentals in the near-term remain on shaky ground. Increase in oil prices due to the Syria situation is expected to add to the current account deficit burden, keeping the rupee under pressure. Hopes of quick reversal of interest rate hikes by RBI are waning, and the GDP and earnings growth outlook for FY'14 continues to have downside.''

Scrip movement

Most Sensex stocks plunged as investors booked profit after a rally witnessed in the last three days.

Reliance Industries fell 6 per cent to Rs 830 after the stock rose 10 per cent in the preceding four trading sessions. It made a low of Rs 803.80 on August 27.

Housing Development Finance Corporation lost five per cent to Rs 700 after a three-day rally of 12 per cent.

TVS Motor Company was down five per cent at Rs 30. Interestingly, Multi Commodity Exchange, which is facing the wrath of its group company National Spot Exchange settlement default, gained five per cent to Rs 411.

Axis Bank (-9.27 per cent), YES Bank (-9.13%), Piramal Ent (-8.93%), TV18 Broadcast (-8.70%), Indusind Bank (-8.45%), Federal Bank (-7.56%), Indiabulls Real Estate (-7.53%), LIC Housing Fin (-7.08%), Titan Inds (-7.07%) and Century Textile (-6.86%) were the major losers.

Lupin, MphasiS, Britannia Industries and Amara Raja were among the few blue-chip companies which gained on the BSE today.

Arun Kejriwal, Founder-Kris Research, said: “The Middle-East crisis affects the globe as much as it affects India. However, today’s market movement showed that India was the only market that was affected with the benchmarks breaching the four per cent levels intra-day before weighted average close. This clearly shows that India has enough internal problems affecting the rupee, economy and therefore the markets.''

Rupee slide worrying but also good for the economy: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to soothe worries about the economy on Friday, telling parliament that the crashing value of the rupee was part of a needed adjustment that would make Asia's third-largest economy more competitive.
The speech was the veteran economist's first substantial comment to parliament since the rupee suffered its steepest ever monthly fall in recent weeks, bringing back memories of a 1991 balance of payments crisis that made Singh famous.
Reading from a written statement, the prime minister promised his government would reduce the "unsustainably large" current account deficit undermining the currency.
"Clearly we need to reduce our appetite for gold, economise the use of petroleum products and take steps to increase our imports," he said.
But he said that a weaker currency was the natural outcome of several years of high inflation, and although the rupee had overshot in the foreign exchange market its decline would bring some economic benefits.
Click NEXT to read PM's views on economy...

Photographs: Reuters

Rupee gains for second day, closes at 65.7/USD

The rupee posted its biggest monthly fall in at least 18 years but gained for a second straight session on Friday as aggressive central bank intervention and positive local and regional cues helped.

The rupee's 8.1 per cent fall is likely the worst performance for the currency ever, but data beyond 1995 was not immediately available.

The partially convertible rupee closed at 65.70/71 per dollar, up 1.3 per cent on the day.

It had closed at 66.55/56 on Thursday, after gaining 3.5 percent, in its biggest single-day gain in 15-1/2 years.

On the week, the rupee declined 3.8 per cent, its worst weekly performance since the week to September 23, 2011.

Markets bounce back, Sensex ends up 405 points

Markets ended higher on Thursday, following the expiry of August derivative, tracking a rebound in the rupee after the Reserve Bank of India decided to provide dollars directly to oil companies.

The ones leading the gains in Thursday's trade were oil & gas major Reliance Industries along with HDFC, ITC, TCS and HDFC Bank.

The Bombay Stock Exchange’s 30-share Sensex closed at 18,401 up 405 points. The National Stock Exchange’s 50-share S&P CNX Nifty closed at 5,409 up 124 points.

In the broader markets, the midcap index advanced 1.5% and the smallcap index gained 0.7%, both underperforming as compared to the 2.2% gain see on the BSE benchmark index.

Global Markets

Asian shares recouped some of the two previous sessions' steep losses on Thursday as fears abated that US-led forces would soon launch a military strike on Syria, and oil prices retreated from a six-month peak.

Emerging market currencies stabilised after their recent battering, with the Indian rupee coming off a record low after the central bank moved to provide dollars directly to oil companies, offering the currency some relief.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 1% after falling 2.2% in the previous two sessions.

Japan's Nikkei share average advanced 0.8% in light trade, helped by the safe-haven yen giving up some of the recent gains that had taken it to a three-week high against the dollar.

European shares too started trading in the green ahead of consumer price data. FTSE 100, CAC and DAX were up 0.1-0.4%.

Rupee

The rupee gained against the dollar today after the Reserve Bank of India announced measures late Wednesday to curb rupee fall through dollar flows.

At 1600 hrs, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 67.31 per dollar against the Wednesday’s close of 68.80/81, when it hit a record low of 68.85.

Sectors & Stocks

All the sectoral indices closed in the green with gains of atleast 0.4%. Oil & Gas, Metal, FMCG, Capital Goods and Auto indices added 2-3% and were the top sectoral gainers.

Power, Bankex, Health Care, Teck, Consumer Durables and PSU indices, too were up 1-1.8%.

The only losers among the Sensex-30 were Coal India down 1.6% along with SBI, Tata Power, Tata Steel, Infosys and Cipla which lost 0.3-0.6%.

Metal names like Sesa Goa, Hindalco and Jindal Steel were up 2-13.5%.

From the financial space, HDFC, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank gained 1.3-5.7%.

Reliance Industries up 4.2% was top gainer from the Oil & Gas pocket along with Gail India and ONGC up 2% each.

FMCG heavyweights, ITC and HUL were also up 2% each.

Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto were the movers in the auto segment, adding 0.6-2.6%.

Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddys Lab, NTPC, BHEL and L&T which added 2.5-4% were the other notable gainers.

The market breadth was very positive owing to the strength in broader markets. 1,275 stocks advanced while 989 stocks declined on the BSE. Jinsy Mathew in Mumbai

Oil companies may soon start losing money on sale of petrol too

With the rupee falling to new lows against the dollar and the Syrian crisis pushing global crude oil prices higher, the concerns that Indian oil marketing companies might again start losing money on petrol sales are back.

According to estimates, if the companies are not allowed to raise petrol rates at least Rs 5 a litre by the first fortnight of September, they might begin to suffer underrecoveries on this decontrolled auto fuel, too -- for the first time this financial year.

Brent crude, which had closed at $116.27 a barrel on Tuesday, had risen to $118.04 a barrel at 6 pm on Wednesday.

The rupee closed near the 69-a-dollar mark.

In the second fortnight of this month, Brent has zoomed from $111.28 to the $118 level, while the Indian currency has slid around 12 per cent since the previous fortnightly price adjustment, on August 16.

Debashish Mishra, senior director, Deloitte India, said: “There’s a serious underrecovery threat on petrol, unless the government goes for a significant hike in prices.

The overall underrecovery on sale of sensitive petroleum products might cross Rs 2 lakh crore (Rs 2 trillion) this year.”

According to industry experts, for the second fortnight of this month, the average underrecovery on petrol now stands at around Rs 1.9 a litre.

“With the developments over the past few days, unless there is a hike -- even as a Parliament session is on -- the price hike required to offset oil firms’ losses would be Rs 5-6 a litre by September 15.

"This would lead to a situation like last year, when there was an underrecovery of Rs 1,100 crore on petrol,” said Emkay Global Financial Services’ Dhaval Joshi.

A senior petroleum ministry official, however, said the government was unlikely to go for a major increase in the prices of diesel, LPG or petrol before Parliament’s monsoon session was over.

The ministry is learnt to be examining the proposal to raise diesel price by more than the agreed 50 paise a month and even increase the price of subsidised domestic cooking gas.

But Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily had on Tuesday said: “At the moment, there is no proposal for a higher dose of increase in the price of diesel or an LPG price hike”.

According to oil companies, there had not been any underrecovery on petrol until the first quarter of the current financial year.

In June 2010, the government had effected a decontrol of petrol prices.

Diesel, on the other hand, is being decontrolled in a phased manner since January this year.

The Brent crude price has been rising over concerns that the US and UK might attack Syria, holding President Bashar al-Assad responsible for a chemical-weapon attack in Damascus.

The rise is alarming for India, as the composition of its basket represents the average of Oman and Dubai for sour grades and Brent for sweet grade in the ratio of 68.2:31.8.

According to a Bloomberg report, the Syrian crisis might lead Brent prices to zoom to $150 a barrel.

Emkay Global’s Joshi, however said: “It’s highly unlikely that Brent prices would go above $125 a barrel.”

For the second fortnight of this month, the under-recoveries on diesel, kerosene and LPG stood at Rs 10.22 a litre, Rs 33.54 a litre and Rs 412 a cylinder, respectively.

State-run Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum were together incurring a revenue loss of Rs 389 crore on a daily basis in selling fuel below market price.