Benchmark Indices Trade Under Pressure

The early morning trade witnessed some amount of consolidation. The benchmark index Sensex was down by 37 points, while Nifty lowered by 10 points. This was primarily due to disappointing IIP and CPI data. On the macro front, the inflation measured on WPI for the month of August shrunk to a five year low of 3.47% compared to 5.19% in July. However, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on Monday said that although WPI has shrunk to five year low in August, there is no point in lowering interest rates to have inflation picking up again. As per the provisional data the foreign and institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 75 crore each. Speaking about the broader markets, the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices continue to outperform their counterparts. The BSE mid-cap index was up by 0.38%, while small-cap index was up by 0.68%.

Tracking the momentum of sectoral indices, BSE healthcare index was up by 1.17%, consumer durables index was up by 0.33%. The top gainer in the rally was led by Sun Pharma, BHEL and Lupin, up by 1.47%, 1.43% and 1.07% respectively. However, Tata Motors was down by 1.36% after reporting a decline in global sales. ONGC, BPCL was down by 1.68% and 1.02% respectively.

Further a mixed trend was seen in Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was seen trading in red, each down by 0.07% and 0.97% respectively. However, China's Shanghai was seen trading in green, up by 0.08%.