Nifty ends below 8000; Sun Pharma & ITC up, Bankex in red

03:30 pm Market closing
Even though the market made some smart moves intraday but could not hold the tempo till end. The Sensex ended up 33.40 points at 26630.51 and the Nifty was up 5.90 points at 7964.80.  About 1370 shares advanced, 1532 shares declined, and 101 shares were unchanged.

Sun Pharma, HDFC, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki and ITC were gainers. BHEL, ICICI Bank, Hindalco, Axis Bank and M&M were among losers.

02:55pm Reliance Communications in focus
While talking in Reliance Communications AGM, Anil Ambani says the company targets to reduce debt by Rs 15,000 crore in 24 months. Debt currently stands at Rs 35,000 crore, he adds.

The company is looking to monetise both real estate and DTH. "We are looking to demerge real estate assets. We are working on contours of real estate demerger," says Ambani.

He further said the company will be participating in next round of auctions that will enable company to launch 4G in 2015-16. The stock fell over 2 percent.

02:30pm Market Expert
With major events already behind us, Vikas Khemani of Edelweiss Capital feels the markets are in a consolidation mood and expects this tendency to continue in the short term.

He maintains an upward trajectory with some correction medium to longer term. ''The next would be probably the quarterly earnings and that is where the markets will take the next round of clues. Depending how the results pan out, you may again see a further short-term movement,'' he told CNBC-TV18.

02:15pm Will government cut diesel price?
Diesel price is likely to be cut by about Re 1 per litre, the first reduction in rates in over five years, while petrol price may be slashed by Rs 1.75.

State-owned oil firms are likely to announce reduction in rates, made possible because of softening in international oil rates, this evening, government and industry sources said.

Under-recovery or the difference between retail price and its imported cost was wiped out and there was an over-recovery of 35 paise a litre from September 16. This over-recovery is now about Re 1 a litre.

While the government had resisted the temptation to cut rates then, prices are likely to be reduced at the fortnightly review due today.

Sources said oil ministry is of the view that while the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) had on January 17, 2013 allowed a monthly increase in diesel price of 40-50 paise per month to wipe out the under-recovery, it wasn't envisaged that there would be over-recovery.

It wants to reduce diesel price to protect state-owned oil companies' market share, which may be lost to private retailers who would be selling diesel in tandem with international prices, reports PTI.

02:00pm Equity benchmarks wiped out all its gains in afternoon trade weighed down by FMCG, banks and technology stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 16.87 points to 26580.24 and the Nifty dropped 5.45 points to 7953.45.

The broader markets too came off day's high with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively. About 1502 shares have advanced, 1214 shares declined, and 106 shares are unchanged.

Shares of TCS, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank declined 1-2 percent. ITC, Reliance Industries, Infosys, HUL, Tata Motors, SBI, Coal India, Bharti Airtel, Wipro and BHEL lost 0.2-0.8 percent.

However, HDFC, Sun Pharma, Sesa Sterlite, Maruti Suzuki and Bajaj Auto gained 1-2 percent.

1:50 pm Diesel price cut?  Diesel price is likely to be cut by about Re 1 per litre, the first reduction in rates in over five years, while petrol price may be slashed by Rs 1.75.
State-owned oil firms are likely to announce reduction in rates, made possible because of softening in international oil rates, this evening, government and industry sources said.

Under-recovery or the difference between retail price and its imported cost was wiped out and there was an over-recovery of 35 paise a litre from September 16. This over-recovery is now about Re 1 a litre.

1:45 pm Gold: Gold held steady above a nine-month low on Tuesday as Asian equities remained unsettled by political unrest in Hong Kong, but was poised to post its sharpest monthly loss since June 2013 as a rapid climb in the dollar dimmed its appeal.

The precious metal is down about 5.5 percent for the month after hitting a nine-month low of USD 1,206.85 last week. Gold is also on track to post its first quarterly loss of the year, though it is still up about 1 percent for the year.

"The pressure is definitely on for gold to end the year in the red," said Howie Lee, investment analyst at Phillip Futures.

"We see little in the way to stop gold's downward slide, given that the Fed has made clear its intention to hike (rates) sooner than later and the Ukraine tensions have reached a fragile ceasefire," Lee said, adding that a strong dollar will also weigh.

The US Federal Reserve indicated earlier this month that it could raise borrowing costs faster than expected when it starts moving, which could boost the dollar and hurt non-interest-bearing bullion.

1:30 pm Buzzing: Shares of PC Jeweller surged 9 percent intraday on Tuesday as it expands its footprints into the e-tailing space. The Delhi-based jewellery company joined e-commerce major Flipkart to create a platform for online jewellery shopping.

The focus will be on the replicating the comfort, convenience and brilliance that is associated with shopping at the jewellery retailer's large format showroom online on Flipkart, it said.

"We are focussed on our online jewellery brand WearYourShine by PC Jeweller and going forward, we would also like to work with Flipkart towards creating a seamless offline-online integration wherein customers get a flexibility to buy online and exchange or return offline across over 46 showrooms of PC Jeweller, it said

PC Jeweller sees online jewellery sales becoming a huge market in the next few years, contributing a good share to their business.

The market stages a smart recovery after the RBI maintains status quo on rates. The Sensex is up 195.12 points at 26792.23 and the Nifty is up 54.80 points at 8013.70. About 1611 shares have advanced, 984 shares declined, and 103 shares are unchanged.

Midcaps outperformed for the second straight day. HDFC, Sun Pharma, Sesa Sterlite, Bajaj Auto and ONGC are top gainers. On the losing side are Axis Bank, TCS, Infosys, HUL and ICICI Bank.

The central bank kept the repo rate and CRR unchanged and retains FY 15 GDP growth target at 5.5 percent. The Reserve Bank says inflation will ease to 6 percent by November but may climb back to 8 percent by January-March 2015. Governor Rajan says inflation readings are expected to be better on better-than-expected monsoon this year.

The ADAG stocks are in focus today as AGM for all the group companies is underway. Chairman Anil Ambani says Reliance Capital is looking to focus on the health insurance business a plans to make it a separate entity in future.

01:00pm Fiscal Deficit
The government said April-August fiscal deficit stood at Rs 3.98 lakh crore, which is 75 percent of full-year target of Rs 5.31 lakh crore.

Apr-July fiscal deficit was at 61.2 percent of full-year target.

12:50pm Interview
Terming the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's bi-monthly credit policy "pragmatic", Ranjan Dhawan, executive director, Bank of Baroda says bankers now have a case for cutting deposit rates.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Dhawan says the deposit rates may see a slight cut owing to lack of credit demand.

''The yields have been falling and there is little demand for easy credit. So a deposit rate cut could come in, but that will have more to do with weak demand that with this policy,'' says Dhawan who expects the RBI to cut repo rates only after a detailed analysis of January 2015 data.

12:40pm Gold Update
Gold held steady above a nine-month low as Asian equities remained unsettled by political unrest in Hong Kong, but was poised to post its sharpest monthly loss since June 2013 as a rapid climb in the dollar dimmed its appeal.

The precious metal is down about 5.5 percent for the month after hitting a nine-month low of USD 1,206.85 last week. Gold is also on track to post its first quarterly loss of the year, though it is still up about 1 percent for the year.

Spot gold edged up USD 1 to USD 1,216.71 an ounce by 0627 GMT, after dipping in the last two sessions, reports Reuters.

12:30pm Market Check
Equity benchmarks extended rally in afternoon trade with the 50-share NSE Nifty hitting 8000 level supported by banking and financials, auto, capital goods and pharma stocks.

The index climbed 59.60 points to 8018.50 and the 30-share BSE Sensex rose 214.69 points to 26811.80. The broader markets gained 0.9 percent. About 1549 shares have advanced, 983 shares declined, and 100 shares are unchanged.

12:15pm Expert on RBI policy
The Reserve Bank of India left policy rates unchanged. "The main reason behind this is that RBI is holding the job of maintaining the credibility of the processes like anti-inflation process while keeping in the consideration quite a lot of currency pressure," said Rohit Gadia, founder and CEO, CapitalVia Global Research.

"RBI has set a glide path for CPI inflation at 8 percent by January 15 and 6 percent by January 2016. So RBI can raise interest rate even in the next review if they see that CPI numbers are going out of ease," he added.

12:00pm Market check
Equity benchmarks gained strength in noon trade with the Sensex rising 92.19 points to 26689.30 and the Nifty advancing 22.85 points to 7981.75 after the Reserve Bank of India kept policy rates unchanged. Auto, healthcare, capital goods and HDFC twins supported the market while technology and FMCG stocks remained under pressure.

The broader markets extended gains with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.8 percent each. Advancing shares outnumbered declining ones by a ratio of 1473 to 975 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Reserve Bank of India maintained status quo on all rates (be it repo rate, cash reserve ratio or statutury liquidity ratio) in today's policy meeting. The apex bank expects inflation to dip to 6 percent by November but that may climb back to 8 percent by January-March 2015.

Auto stocks like Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto and Hero Motocorp gained 1-1.8 percent followed by Tata Motors with 0.4 percent upside while HDFC and HDFC Bank were up 2.6 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

Drug makers Sun Pharma, Cipla and Dr Reddy's Labs climbed 1-1.6 percent. L&T advanced 1.7 percent on bagging orders worth Rs 1,423 crore in September.

11:56 am Market check: The Sensex is up 71.27 points at 26668.38 and the Nifty is up 19.90 points at 7978.80.  About 1452 shares have advanced, 980 shares declined, and 99 shares are unchanged.

11:45 am Buzzing: Shares of L&T rose 2 percent intraday after it recieved construction orders worth Rs 1423 crore for its heavy civil infrastructure, power transmission and distribution business.

Out of the total, L&T has bagged a Rs 631 crore order from the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation for construction of metros. As per the agreement, the infrastructure company has to construct 8.5 km elevated viaducts and 8 elevated corridors. The project is likely to be completed in two years.

11:35 am NTC plans?  The government said "it is committed not to sell" the loss-making NTC and plans to nurse the ailing state-owned textiles firm back to health by disposing of its land worth Rs 1,750 crore in Uttar Pradesh.

"NTC has 11 places in UP and British India Corporation Ltd (BICL) has 35. The matter has been pending since last 15 years and the government has wasted Rs 500 crore," textiles minister Santosh Gangwar said.

"I do not wish to blame anybody. I wrote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and met him. We had fruitful discussions on the issue. We will dispose of/sell the land worth Rs 2,000 crore of BIC and Rs 1,750 crore of NTC (to generate revenue)," he said. However, Gangwar added: "We are committed to not sell National Textile Corporation."

11:30 am Buzzing: Investors lapped up more shares of DCB Bank after the private sector lender launched its qualified institutional placement (QIP) issue for subscription. The stock gained as much as 3 percent intraday, in addition to 3 percent gains in pervious session.

The board of directors of the bank on Monday decided to open the qualified institutional placement (QIP) issue with immediate effect and approved the preliminary placement document in connection with the QIP.

The board has fixed floor price for the issue at Rs 86.45 per equity share, which is 3 percent higher compared to Monday's closing price. According to the filing, the bank may offer a discount of not more than 5 percent on the floor price.

11:24 am Market check: The Sensex is up 26.72 points at 26623.83 and the Nifty up is 6.60 points at 7965.50. About 1319 shares have advanced, 1021 shares declined, and 86 shares are unchanged.  Bank Nifty is down 0.15 percent.

Axis Bank is down 1.45 percent, YES Bank is down 1 percent while Kotak Mahindra is up  2 percent.

11:20 am Raghuram Rajan says

• In a better situation than we were in August
• Data developments since August have been positive
• Future policies will be data-contingent
• Inflation readings better on better-than-expected monsoon

11:15 am Raghuram Rajan says

Raghuram Rajan says currently positioned to reach 6 percent inflation target by 2016. He adds that took many steps to facilitate growth and development for financial sector.

11:10 am RBI says:

• Expect inflation to ease to 7 percent in Q4FY16
• Cut in ceiling on HTM for bonds to be on till Sep 19, 2015
• Cut in ceiling on HTM for bonds will start Jan 10, 2015
• To cut ceiling on HTM for bonds gradually from 24 percent to 22 percent
• Inflation may climb back to 8 percent by January-March 2015
• Inflation will ease to 6 percent by November
• GDP growth pick-up unlikely to sustain in next two quarters
• Projects FY16 GDP growth at 6.3 percent
• Retains FY15 GDP growth target at 5.5 percent

11:05 am RBI says:

• Since June, inflation ebbed to levels consistent with 8 percent target.
• Upside risks to inflation from geopolitical tensions
• Stability in exchange rate is entrenching disinflation
• 8 percent January 2015 inflation target more within reach than in April

The market is still sluggish as RBI did not spring up any surprise move. The central bank has kept key rates unchanged. The Sensex is up 43.32 points at 26640.43 and the Nifty is down 4.20 points at 7954.70. About 1322 shares have advanced, 933 shares declined, and 69 shares are unchanged.

HDFC, Bajaj Auto, Maruti, Dr Reddy's Labs and Sun Pharma are top gainers while GAIL, Hindalco, Infosys, Tata Steel and TCS are among the laggards in the Sensex.

Asian markets were in hesitant mood on Tuesday as investors wondered what China's response would be to civil unrest in Hong Kong, while the U.S. dollar was on track to post its biggest monthly gain in well over a year.

Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters blocked Hong Kong streets on Tuesday, in one of the biggest political challenges to Beijing since the Tiananmen Square crackdown 25 years ago.
The unrest was an added complication for investors amid long-standing concerns about the health of China's economy.

10:35am All eyes on RBI Policy
The Reserve Bank of India is expected to maintain a status quo on rates in its credit policy today, however the market is keeping an eye on governor Raghuram Rajan's tone.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Richard Jerram, Chief Economist at the Bank of Singapore, said that though there is no action expected but the ''communication around that no action is going to be important''.

He thinks the RBI has been doing a good job in building up the credibility of the anti-inflation process, adding that one has to look at exchange rates too.

''I think you want to make very careful that you are not committing to be cutting interest at a time when there is quite a lot of currency pressure. So, I would think the markets may even welcome some signs of a continued hawkishness just because of the boost of the credibility of the overall process,'' Jerram added.

10:20am FII View
Mahesh Nandurkar, CLSA says after the setback to the BJP in the recent state assembly bypolls, the focus is back on politics and the two important state government elections (Maharashtra and Haryana) soon.

''A potential loss for BJP will be a sentiment negative for the market but it will not impact Modi's policy making and the growth improvement trajectory remains intact. Any potential dip after elections will be a buying opportunity,'' he adds.

10:00am Market Check
Equity benchmarks remained directionless ahead of much-awaited RBI monetary policy. The Sensex declined 3.52 points to 26593.59 and the Nifty lost 3.55 points to 7955.35.

However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.5 percent each. About 1107 shares have advanced, 713 shares declined, and 61 shares are unchanged.

The Reserve Bank of India will announce its monetary policy today at 11 am. Experts do not see any rate cut but they feel there could be SLR cut.

Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economic Advisor at State Bank of India, expects status quo from the Reserve Bank in its credit policy. In fact he does not see a rate cut this year and the first half of next year.

On the central bank's tone, Ghosh thinks it would be favourable on the back of positive developments in the past couple of days like the Scotland verdict, the current disinflationary trend and better core numbers.

Though he feels the central bank may cut the statutory liquidity ratio by 25-50 bps, he does not expect any movement in the CRR (cash reserve ratio).

Shares of TCS, Axis Bank, Hindalco Industries and Gail India fell over a percent followed by Infosys, ITC, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra and Mahindra with 0.4 percent loss.

However, HDIL topped the buying list, up 1.6 percent. L&T, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Labs, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Power gained 0.3-1.3 percent.

9:55 am Buzzing: Shares of Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) jumped 5 percent intraday after its promoters have revoked all shares pledged with IL&FS Trust Company.

"Promoters of HDIL have revoked all shares earlier pledged with IL&FS Trust Company and now the entire 100 per cent shares in the promoters category is non-pledged," it said.

IL&FS Trust has released over 7.54 crore equity shares of promoters, including those of Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan.  The released shares in the latest tranche comprise 51.89 percent of the total shares pledged by promoter group.

9:45 am Will Hong Kong unrest spook market? Unrest in Hong Kong is spooking markets for fear it could escalate, challenging Beijing to make a measured political response, at a time when Chinese and global growth are at the heart of market anxiety. Worries about soft Chinese growth and European weakness has made investors uneasy, while the US Federal Reserve signals it is moving away from easy policy and getting closer to returning to a more normal interest rate environment as the US economy gets stronger.

A wave of weekend protests in Hong Kong extended into Monday with thousands defying a government call to end street blockades, after police used tear gas, pepper spray and batons to break up a sit-in by students and other residents seeking democratic elections in the former British colony.

9:35 am FII  view: Mahesh Nandurkar, CLSA says after the setback to the BJP in the recent state assembly bypolls, the focus is back on politics and the two important state government elections (Maharashtra and Haryana) soon.

''A potential loss for BJP will be a sentiment negative for the market but it will not impact Modi's policy making and the growth improvement trajectory remains intact. Any potential dip after elections will be a buying opportunity,'' he adds.

The market has once again opened on a flat note ahead of RBI's monetary policy. The Sensex is down 6.91 points at 26590.20 and the Nifty down 10.10 points at 7948.80. About 364 shares have advanced, 198 shares declined, and 24 shares are unchanged.

Dr Reddy's Labs, Tata Power, M&M, Tata Motors and Wipro are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Hindalco, Hero MotoCorp, BHEL, Reliance and SBI.

The Indian rupee opened marginally lower at 61.60 per dollar as against previous day's closing of 61.53 a dollar. The dollar was hovering at a four-year peak against a basket of major currencies on track to post its biggest monthly gain in well over a year.

Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said, "The focus will be on RBI credit policy today. Globally, the dollar strength continues to be the theme with dollar index settling above the 85 level. Expect the USD/INR pair to trade in 60-61 range as of now, although it will perform better than its peers."

On the global market front, US stocks ended lower following protests in Hong Kong that added to worries about Chinese growth and after a disappointing forecast from Ford Motor Co.

Asian markets too were cautious over developments in Hong Kong and as investors focused on data in China and Japan. Kospi weighed down by data showing August industrial output posted its worst monthly fall since 2008.

In commodities, crude hovers around USD 97/bbl on support from strong US economic data last week

From precious metals space-- gold holds steady above a nine-month low but poised to post its sharpest monthly loss in 15 months as a rapid climb in the dollar dimmed the metal's appeal.