Update at 3.17 PM: Wipro recovered from its lows to trade at Rs 525.75, down 2.05 percent while Infosys was trading 1.47 percent higher at Rs 962.60, while Biocon gained 1.26 percent to trade at Rs 1,033 after the GST Council reduced the tax rate on insulin from 12 percent to 5 percent.
The BSE Sensex was down 166 points to 31,095, dragged by Tata Motors, L&T, Wipro and ICICI Bank. Wipro shares go ex-bonus from Tuesday (June 13) while the record date for the 1:1 bonus shares is June 14, 2017.
Update at 10.50 AM: Wipro shares crashed almost 3 percent to hit an intraday low of Rs 521.40 in response to the company flagging off Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections as a factor affecting growth. Infosy was also down 0.81 percent to Rs 941.
"On November 8, 2016, Donald J Trump was elected the next President of the United States. As a candidate, Trump expressed support for policies impacting existing trade agreements, like North America Free Trade Agreement. He also proposed trade agreements, thus, promoting greater restrictions on free trade generally and significant increases tariffs on goods imported into the United States," Wipro said in a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
"Social, political, regulatory and economic conditions or in laws and policies governing foreign trade, manufacturing, development and investment in the territories and countries where we currently operate could adversely affect our business," the company added.
Original story:
Political uncertainty in Europe, especially in the UK after election results threw a hung parliament, led to weak opening on Asian stocks markets on Monday, impacting India. The BSE Sensex opened about 150 points lower to hit 31,106 but partially recovered later to trade at 31,140, down 122 points, at around 9.45 am.
Top losers were Wipro (down 2.6 percent to Rs 522), TCS and Adani Ports while stocks bucking the trend included Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki India and GAIL (India).
The bearish opening for Indian stock market was on predicted lines. "Indian markets are likely to open flat and may trade in positive zone tracking the SGX Nifty and Asian markets," brokerage Angel Broking said in a note on Monday morning.
The government will be releasing May retail inflation data and April factory output (IIP) after markets close for the day on Monday. Finance minister Arun Jaitley will be meeting chiefs of public sector banks to discuss a slew of developments and initiatives, including NPAs.
Brokerage Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities has forecast retail (CPI) inflation to come at 2.3 percent, lower than the record low of 2.99 percent posted for April.
"May 2017 Consumer Price Index or CPI inflation is likely to come in at 2.3 percent, lower than the 3 percent reading for the previous month," Teresa John, economist at brokerage Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities, said in a note on Friday.
"The decline in CPI inflation can be attributed to the fall in food inflation, particularly continuous disinflation in pulses, and soft vegetable prices combined with the base effect," she added.
GST update
After tweaking tax rates on 66 items such as cinema tickets, cashew, insulin, incense sticks and computer printers, at its meeting on Sunday, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will be meeting on June 18 to review its preparedness for rolling out the GST rates from July 1 2017.
Petrol, diesel prices for Monday, June 12
(The daily price mechanism currently valid in five cities will be extended to the entire country from June 16).
