Rupee, Market Open High but Decline during Monday Trade; Cement Stocks Down Due to Rail Fare Hike

During the pre-opening session at 9 am, sensex recorded 25103.82 points losing 1.69 points, whereas at 9:15 am, the index surged by 51.49 points at 25155.31 points.

At 9:10 am, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) index opened with 25108.09 gaining 2.58 points and at 9:15 am, the Nifty index opened with 7521.35 with an increase of 10 points.

However, the rupee opened at 60.10 against the US dollar on Monday and against Friday's closing at 60.18 per dollar. So, the rupee strengthened by 8 paise on Monday.

On Friday, BSE sensex recorded a two-week low at 25,105.51 points along with BSE 100, Mid Cap and BSE 200. While (National Stock Exchange) NSE index closed at 7,511.45 points by a decrease of 0.39 percent.

Top gainers from BSE:

Top Losers from BSE:

In the meantime, top gainers from NSE index were, Mahindra Ugine Steel, Mahindra CIE Automotive, Gokul Refoils and Solvent, Prime Focus and Hilton Metal.

Blue star InfoTech, CIL Nova Petrochemicals, Cerebra Integrated Technologies, HB Stockholdings and Paras Petrofils were among the top five losers.

India's metal shares gained after HSBC survey revealed activity in China's factory sector that expanded in June for the first time in six months as new orders increased, according to Reuters.

So, Tata Steel's stock recorded at ₹527.45 with surge of ₹7.55 and Hindalco's stock recorded at ₹166.15 with an increase of ₹2.35. Meanwhile, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) gains 2.1 percent while Hero MotoCorp is up 1.5 percent.

But, due to hike in Railway fares, shares of cement companies declined after the government pushed hike in transportation of goods to 6.5 percent on Friday. ACC, UltraTech Cement and Ambuja Cement's stocks fell by 0.2 percent, 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.

The cement industry transports nearly third of its production through railways. Investors told Reuters that, cement companies would not be able to transport goods to customers due to hike in freight rates amid monsoon.

Whereas, shares of India's sugar refiners gained after Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan called a second meeting on Monday to discuss ways to bail out the sugar industry that is unable to pay ₹11,000 crore dues to farmers.

Bajaj Hindustan Ltd, Dhampur Sugar Mills, Shree Renuka Sugars and Balrampur Chini Mills gained 3 percent, 2.1 percent, 3.2 percent and 3.8 percent respectively. Business Standard reported that, Uttar Pradesh tops the list with a maximum of ₹7, 200 crore dues.

Moreover, overseas investors sold Indian shares worth ₹2.20 billion ($36.85 million) on Friday and domestic institutional investors bought shares worth ₹738.5 million ($1.2 billion dollar).

Dow and S&P 500 recorded highs on Friday, as the shares of 330 companies hit 52-week highs on New York Stock Exchange. The blue-chip index hit at 16,978.02 points, approaching close to 17k. While London based FTSE surged 16.9 percent high at 4,371 points by adding 15 points.

But, Nikkei fell flat by 0.1 percent at 15,349.42 points and Hong Kong based Hang Seng index too fell by 0.1 percent on Friday.

On Friday, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) accepted all 25 bids for ₹116.26 billion ($1.95 billion) at its three-day repo auction. But on Monday morning, RBI accepted 43 bids for ₹183.48 billion at 8 percent fixed rate during one day repo auction.

However, at 1 pm on Monday, BSE index recorded 24,932.4 points with decline of 175.69 points and Nifty too recorded low at 7459.60 points with a decrease of 61.75 points.

During the trading hours, index recorded decline following range bound trade as expected by analysts due to monsoon effect, railway hike and upcoming budget on 10 July.