Key barometers came off day's high in morning trade. At 10:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 11.97 points or 0.03% at 41,364.14. The Nifty 50 index was up 6.05 points or 0.05% at 12,171.05.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 38th goods and services tax (GST) Council meeting today, 18 December 2019. Investors are keenly waiting for the outcome of the meeting to get any cues on the government's plan to overcome revenue shortfall. Concerns on fiscal path may influence government to hike tax slabs.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.34% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.04%.
The market breadth was almost even. On the BSE, 880 shares rose and 871 shares fell. A total of 115 shares were unchanged. In Nifty 50 index, 18 stocks advanced while 32 stocks declined.
Buzzing Index:
The Nifty IT index was up 1% at 15,793.95, extended its rising streak for fourth straight session. The index rose over 5% in four trading sessions.
Persistent Systems (up 1.91%), TCS (up 1.47%), Tech Mahindra (up 1.33%), Zensar Technologies (up 1.05%), Wipro (up 1.04%), MindTree (up 1.02%), Larsen & Toubro Infotech (up 0.9%), Infosys (up 0.84%), HCL Technologies (up 0.81%) and Hexaware Technologies (up 0.7%) were top gainers in IT segment.
In the foreign exchange market, the rupee edged lower against the dollar. The partially convertible rupee was hovering at 71.09, compared with its close of 70.985 during the previous trading session.
Stocks in Spotlight:
Shares of NMDC were up 0.68% at Rs 117.95. NMDC said on Tuesday it received a 20-year extension for four mines in its biggest mining project in Chhattisgarh. In a statement, NMDC said Chhattisgarh's government had extended four mining leases in state's Bailadila area upto the year 2035. The mining leases were valid upto 31 March 2020. The disclosure was made by the company after market hours yesterday, 17 December 2019.
In a separate announcement on Tuesday, NMDC said it received allocation of 'Rohne' coal block. This allocation would ensure the coking coal requirement of NMDC's upcoming steel plant at Nagarnar, Chattisgarh to some extent. This is an important step for raw material security for the steel plant and also to some extent reduces the import of coking coal.
Bank of Baroda declined 2.25% after Reserve Bank of India found that the bank show a divergence in bad loans by Rs 5250 crore in the year ended 31 March 2019. The divergence is the difference in bad loans reported by the bank and the assessment done by RBI. Bank of Baroda had reported a net loss of Rs 8,339 crore in the year ended March 2019. The adjusted (notional) net loss for the year ended 31 March 2019, after taking into account the divergence in provisioning, was at Rs 10,998 crore.
According to recent guidelines by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), banks are now required to disclose divergence in the asset classification and provisioning immediately upon receipt of RBI's final Risk Assessment Report (RAR). For the year ended March 2019, the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) assessed by RBI was at Rs 75,174 crore compared with Rs 69,924 crore in gross NPA reported by the bank.
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