Nifty struggles below 8000 ahead of F&O expiry; Asian Paints up

Moneycontrol Bureau10:55 am Market Update: Equity benchmarks continued to trade lower on profit booking after two-day rally and ahead of F&O expiry. The Sensex was down 103.61 points at 25948.20 and the Nifty down 39.35 points at 7993.95.The market breadth improved as about 1111 shares advanced against 938 declining shares on the BSE.10:40 am Interview: Dipak Gupta, Joint MD OF Kotak Mahindra Bank, said that it is early to surmise on the impact of demonetisation. He also stressed that the impact is felt not just on the liability side of the bank’s balance sheet but some of it in the short-term gets offset by asset-side gains.

He believes that in the event of increasing liability for banks, deposit rates will come down. He mentioned it doesn’t affect the bank's net interest margins.

The bank’s delta deposits grew Rs 10,000-11,000 crore in the last 12-13 days. Initially, it comes in through current and savings accounts, but it won’t remain as CASA as in 15-20 days time, people will want this money back, he said.

Regarding disbursements at SMEs, and retail credit, he admitted there is a contraction in disbursements. Customers are reassessing the situation, he said.

10:25 am Siemens falls: Electronics and electrical engineering company Siemens shares fell 2 percent intraday in addition to 2 percent loss in previous session after dismal performance in Q4FY16. The stock has underperformed Sensex by around 13 percent over the last year. Brokerage houses retained their negative outlook, saying valuations are still rich.

"Siemens India is trading at FY17 (September 2017) PE and EV/EBITDA of 45x and 26x respectively which looks rich, on our forecast of 36 percent EPS growth in FY17," Deutsche Bank said which has retained sell rating with target price of Rs 1,050 on the stock.

While maintaining underweight rating with a target price of Rs 1,000, JP Morgan says it sees downside risk to earnings, taking a cue from the September quarter margin miss, unless the growth and margin outlook for FY17 improves.

10:11 am Oil Update: Oil prices were little changed as uncertainty ahead of a planned OPEC-led crude production cut and thin liquidity due to the US Thanksgiving holiday kept traders from making big new bets on markets.

International Brent crude oil futures were trading at USD 48.98 a barrel, up 3 cents from their last close.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at USD 48.03 per barrel, up 7 cents from their last settlement.

Traders said market activity was low due to the US holiday, and there was a reluctance to take on big price directional bets due to uncertainty about a planned oil production cut, led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

OPEC is due to meet on November 30 to coordinate a cut, potentially together with non-OPEC member Russia, but there is also disagreement within the producer cartel as to which member states should cut and by how much.Also read - Demonetisation pain unlikely to be beyond two quarters: CLSA10:00 am Market check

Equity benchmarks continued to see selling pressure, though they recovered a bit from day's lows. The NSE Nifty was still struggling below 8000 level ahead of expiry of November derivative contracts.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 90.12 points at 25961.69 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 38.70 points to 7994.60 while the broader markets were flat with a negative bias.

Asian Paints extended rally, up more than 2 percent on top of 4 percent upside in previous session. Technology stocks like Infosys, TCS and Wipro gained 0.2-0.7 percent after the rupee touched record closing low of 68.80 against the US dollar.

Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Lupin, NTPC and Adani Ports were down 1-2 percent.