Markets down; Power Grid; Coal India decline
Markets down; Power Grid; Coal India decline
Mumbai: Indian shares edged 0.4% lower on Monday, on profit-taking after they rose near their all-time intra-day high in early trade.
State-run Power Grid Corp fell nearly 6% after the electricity transmission utility fixed the price band for its up to $1.7 billion share sale at a 12-17% discount to its Friday closing.
Meanwhile, state-run Coal India which made a spectacular debut last week, dropped as much as 5.6%, as traders locked in gains.
At 10:39am, the 30-share BSE index was down 0.42% at 20,915.83 points, with 22 of its components declining. The 50-share NSE index was down 0.4% at 6,288.80.
“It is just the usual profit-booking after we see a rise to a level like that. Nothing really has changed though," said Kunal Sukhani, manager of institutional equities at Asian Markets Securities.
The benchmark stock index rose as much as 0.6% to 21,075.71, and was only around 130 points short of an all-time high.
For the week ended 5 November, foreign funds preferred Indian shares among Asian stocks with a net investment of $1.8 billion, data from Nomura showed.
Top lender State Bank of India was down 1.5% ahead of its September quarter earnings announcement.
A Reuters poll expects SBI to report a 22% rise in their July-September net profit at Rs3,033 crore .
Software majors declined after rising for all sessions so far in November. The sector index was trading 0.8% lower but was still up 2.5% this month.
Leading outsourcers Tata Consultancy Services Infosys Technologies and Wipro were down between 0.9% and 1%.
In the broader market, losers led gainers by a ratio of 1.2:1 on volume of 136 million shares.
Elsewhere, the MSCI’s measure of Asian markets other than Japan was down 0.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.9%.
STOCKS
Reliance Power was up 3.9% at Rs171.40 after the Economic Times newspaper reported the US Export-Import Bank will offer loans of up to $5 billion to help the Indian power producer purchase US goods and services for various power plants, two dealers said.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals rose 3.1% to Rs375.30 after the drugmaker said it has completed phase-III trials for its Crofelemer drug.
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