Indian equity markets appeared lacklustre

Fri, 13 Sep Closing

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Extending the continued weakness, the Indian equity markets have closed on a weak note today with lackluster performance. Stocks across the board ended on a mixed note with those from the Realty, Power, Auto and capital goods' space leading the gains; while FMCG, IT and Consumer durables' stocks witnessed the decline. Wipro turned out to be the biggest loser today. The BSE Sensex slipped and closed down by about 49 points while the NSE-Nifty stood almost flat. That said, the BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap indices closed on a firm note and were up by 0.6% each.

As regards global markets, most of the Asian indices have closed on a weak note. The European indices have opened on a weak note too. The rupee was trading at Rs 63.45 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Amidst volatility in the markets particularly in the mid-afternoon session, the major indices entered in the negative zone owing to the trimming of the GDP forecast by the Advisory Council for the fiscal year 2013. The Prime Minister's economic advisory panel has revised the GDP forecast much in-line with that of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the current fiscal. The Panel pegs the economic growth to close the year at 5.3%. The Advisory Council is of the opinion that the manufacturing sector is expected to do well in the second-half of the FY13 on account of good uptick in automobile production and exports in the month of August. Besides, the Industrial production unexpectedly has rebounded in July and the consumer inflation has cooled down offering some relief. Considering, all the above factors, the GDP forecast at 5.3% appears to be reasonable in the opinion of the Ministry.

Except Bank of Maharashtra, all of the PSU bank stocks have ended the day on a positive note. According to leading financial news daily, State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, has been witnessing a 10-12% growth on YoY basis for its project finance segment. The bank has observed increased outflow towards project finance and higher number of projects have also been sanctioned. While other lenders have discontinued lending in this segment on account of slowdown, SBI has not done so and hence has witnessed healthy sanctions' growth. For the ensuing July-September quarter 2013, SBI is expecting an overall credit growth in the range of 18%-20% and would be driven largely by the growth in retail portfolio. SBI stock closed on a flat note and was up by 0.05%.