Mumbai: Caution ahead of the Parliament’s budget session and negative global cues pulled the Indian equities markets lower during the morning trade session on Tuesday. The budget session started on Tuesday with President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to a joint session of parliament. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to table the Economic Survey for 2016-17 later in the day. However, investors were worried about political logjam over the recently held demonetisation drive which is expected to stall the Parliament’s proceedings. Besides, heavy selling pressure was witnessed in stocks of IT, automobile and banking companies. The wider 51-scrip Nify of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) edged down 45.45 points or 0.53 per cent, to 8,587.30 points.
The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 27,867.92 points, traded at 27,740.17 points (at 11.10 a.m.) — down 109.39 points or 0.39 per cent, from the previous close at 27,849.56 points. The Sensex has touched a high of 27,867.92 points and a low of 27,695.23 points during the intra-day trade so far. The BSE market breadth was tilted in favour of the bears — with 1,454 declines and 817 advances. On Monday, the NSE Nifty had inched down 8.50 points or 0.10 per cent, to close at 8,632.75 points, while the BSE Sensex was down 32.90 points or 0.12 per cent. “Market is giving up some of its gains as Union Budget is slated to be presented tomorrow. This has triggered profit booking at higher levels,” Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, said. “Asian market is trading weak and China’s market is closed for a week on account of lunar new year. Metal and Auto sector are bearing major brunt of profit booking.”
