Sensex loses 267 points, Nifty ends below 9300 on profit booking

3:30 pm Market Closing: Equity benchmarks erased previous day's gains, up nearly a percent on profit booking in banks, oil and metals stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 267.41 points at 29,858.80 and the 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 74.60 points to 9,285.30.

3:25 pm Buzzing: The stock price of Avenue Supermarts, the operator of retail chain D-Mart, hit a record high of Rs 814, up 5.3 percent intraday Friday ahead of its first quarterly earnings due on May 6.

The Street will closely watch its March quarter earnings, especially after bumper listing on March 21. The stock shot up 172 percent from its issue price of Rs 299 and gained more than 30 percent from listing price of Rs 600.

Important key points in earnings to watch out for would be its revenue growth, same-store-sales growth and margin. Analysts say the company is unlikely to disappoint given strong financial history.

3:14 pm IPO: The initial public offer of IRB InvIT Fund was oversubscribed 3.96 times till afternoon trade on the last day of the offer today.

The offer received bids for 99.27 crore shares against the total issue size of 25 crore shares, data available with the NSE till 15:00 hours showed. IRB InvIT Fund on Tuesday raised around Rs 2,100 crore from anchor investors.

The IPO, the first in the InvIT space, has a price band of Rs 100-102.

InvITs or infrastructure investment trusts are those debt instruments that will be traded in the market and can act as investment vehicles for sponsors.

The listing of instruments will enable promoters to monetise completed assets and raise funds for other long-term projects.

3:05 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices remained under pressure, with the Sensex down 263.75 points at 29,862.46 and the Nifty down 76.85 points at 9,283.05.

About five shares declined for every two shares rising on the BSE.

2:45 pm Earnings: Shankara Building Products announced its quarterly earnings for the first time after its listing on exchanges in April 2017. Consolidated profit for January-March quarter grew by 10.9 percent to Rs 19 crore compared with year-ago period, driven by stable topline and operational growth.

Revenue on consolidated basis increased 5.2 percent to Rs 600.4 crore compared with Rs 570.8 crore in same quarter last fiscal, led by growth in its both segments retail and channel & enterprise.

Operating profit during the quarter grew by 10.1 percent year-on-year to Rs 45.6 crore and margin expanded by 30 basis points to 7.6 percent in the quarter ended March 2017.

2:22 pm Dividend proposed: Shankara Building Products Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on May 5, 2017, proposed a final dividend.

"The Board has proposed a final dividend of Rs. 2.75 per equity share for the financial year ended March 31, 2017 subject to the approval of shareholders at the ensuing Annual General Meeting (AGM). The dividend, if approved by the shareholders will be paid after the AGM date," it told the exchanges.

2:08 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to be sluggish, with the Nifty trading below 9300, dragged by a fall in banks and metals.

The Sensex was down 238.66 points at 29887.55, while the Nifty was down 68.55 points at 9291.35. The market breadth was negative as 703 shares advanced against a decline of 2,027 shares, while 127 shares were unchanged.

Tata Motors, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda and Hindalco, were top losers, while Asian Paints, Adani Ports, Indiabulls Housing and ACC gained the most.

1:50 pm Register buildings or be deemed unauthorised: Builders beware! If you don't register your projects under the new Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act by July 31, it will be deemed as 'unauthorised' construction by the real estate regulator.

''If builders fail to register their projects by July 31, all their projects will become unauthorised,'' said Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty alleviation at a conference on real estate regulation rules organised by industry body FICCI.

RERA, which kicked in this week, mandates that all developers must register both their new launches and ongoing projects that have not received a completion certificate with the regulator by July 31.

1:25 pm PSU banks at day's low: Nifty PSU Bank index fell over 2 percent after the government notified Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017.

RBI will ask banks to initiate insolvency in cases of default. It will form committees to advise banks on resolution of stressed assets.

Banks' stressed assets are 'unacceptably' high. Urgent steps are needed to resolve stressed assets, the government says.

Bank of Baroda, Syndicate Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, IDBI Bank, OBC, SBI, Union Bank and PNB fell 1-3.5 percent.

1:07 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks as well as broader markets remained under pressure in afternoon, with the Sensex struggling below 30000 level as all sectoral indices were red.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 222.30 points at 29,903.91 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 62.05 points to 9,297.85.

The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices also declined 1 percent each on weak breadth. More than two shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.

12:47 pm Macquarie on HDFC: With maintaining neutral rating on the stock, the research firm increased target price to Rs 1,635 (from Rs 1,570 earlier) after raising FY19 EPS by 3 percent to build slightly higher loan growth.

Macquarie also raised loan growth estimates slightly and built a 16 percent FY16-19 CAGR from 15 percent earlier. Expensive valuations are a key catalyst for the stock going forward, it feels.

With respect to the outlook on the affordable housing segment, prospects look healthy, though supply of affordable housing units could be a potential near-term dampener, the research house says.

12:38 pm NBCC's topline bet: NBCC (India) Ltd management met analysts yesterday to discuss the Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd (HSCL) acquisition that came into effect on April 1.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Anoop Kumar Mittal, CMD of the company spoke about the latest happenings in his company and sector.

"For the next two-three years I am expecting minimum 12-15 percent topline growth for HSCL", he said, adding that he also expects 6-7 percent bottomline growth for HSCL in FY18.

12:27 pm Management Speak: IT services company L&T Infotech today posted an 11.4 percent rise in net income at Rs 254.5 crore for the March quarter. The company had registered a net income of Rs 228.2 crore during January-March period of last fiscal.

Sanjay Jalona, CEO and MD, L&T Infotech in an interview to CNBC-TV18 spoke about the fourth quarter performance, the deal pipeline, HI-B visa costs and the margin outlook going forward.

Jalona said they had announced three large deal with total contract value (TCV) of USD 100 million in the third quarter of FY17, and the revenues from that will come through from Q2 FY18, so Q3 and Q4 of FY18 will see robust growth.

12:04 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices extended their losses from the morning session and were trading at the day's low points and the Nifty snapped 9300 mark.

The 30-share Sensex was down 211.19 points at 29915.02, while the Nifty was lower by 63.95 points at 9295.95.

The market breadth remained in the negative as 854 shares advanced against a decline of 1,663 shares, while 134 shares were unchanged.

Tata Motors, ONGC, and Hindalco lost the most, while Asian Paints, SBI and Indiabulls Housing were top gainers.

Metals saw a huge fall, with the Nifty metal index falling over 2 percent.

11:47 am Metal stocks under pressure: Hindalco Industries, Vedanta and Tata Steel were down 2-5 percent following correction in global metals prices.

11:45 am CARE on steel policy 2017: The policy is being considered as a positive measure taken by the government to increase the off-take of domestic production while not putting restrictions on the imports. The government plans to domestically meet entire demand of high grade automotive steel, electrical steel, special steels and alloys for strategic applications.

The government also plans to increase domestic availability of washed coking coal so as to reduce import dependence on coking coal to 50 percent. The policy is envisaged to promote growth and development of domestic steel Industry and reduce the inclination to use, low quality low cost imported steel in Government funded projects.

11:42 am Management Speak: Real estate prices have stabilised post demonetisation and interest rates are likely to be at their best levels now, according to the head of country's largest housing finance company HDFC – Housing Development Finance Corporation.

Keki Mistry, Vice Chairman and CEO of HDFC believes that the demonetisation impact on residential real estate is over and demand for loans has come back since the beginning of this year.

''I don't see interest rates moving down further. This is the bottom of the interest rate cycle. Only if you have a very good monsoon and the global outlook for oil and commodity prices looks muted then we can see a rate cut. But that to me looks difficult,'' Mistry said speaking to Moneycontrol.

11:26 am Earnings Estimates: Firstsource Solutions' fourth quarter profit is seen falling 1 percent sequentially to Rs 69 crore and revenue may decline to Rs 885 crore from Rs 885.4 crore.

According to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) may increase to Rs 95 crore (from Rs 91.5 crore) and margin is expected to expand to 10.7 percent (from 10.3 percent) on sequential basis.

During the quarter, the company maintained its revenue growth guidance of 10-12 percent for FY17 but it guided for a slightly lower margin profile due to underperformance of its mortgage business. It has revised its margin improvement guidance of 40-50 bps in FY17 against earlier 70-90 bps owing to currency headwind and weakness in mortgage business.

FY18 growth outlook & margin guidance will be closely watched.

11:10 am Market Check: Downward trend in the market continued after a record high previous session, with the Sensex falling over 100 points.

The Sensex was down 132.88 points at 29993.33, while the Nifty was down 38.10 points at 9321.80. The market breadth was negative as 957 shares advanced against a fall of 1,408 shares, while 110 shares were unchanged.

Asian Paints, State Bank of India (SBI), Aurobindo Pharma and Indiabulls Housing Finance were top gainers on both the indices, while Tata Motors, ONGC and Hindalco lost the most.

10:30 am Defaulter: The cash-strapped infrastructure firm Jaiprakash Associates has failed to pay interest on non- convertible debentures even after more than three months of the due date.

"... the interest instalment in respect of 12.4 per cent non-convertible debentures... remains unpaid for more than three months as on May 4, 2017," the company said in a BSE filing.

The Jaypee group has been selling off its assets to lighten its debt load. Last year, it announced sale of its cement plants with a total capacity of 21.1 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) at an enterprise value of Rs 16,189 crore to the Aditya Birla Group firm UltraTech Cement,

10.11 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks remained under pressure, with the Nifty struggling below 9350 on consistent profit booking.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 125.18 points at 30,001.03 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 34.90 points to 9,325.

However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks, with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices trading flat but the market breadth was weak.

About three shares declined for every two shares advancing on the BSE.

Asian Paints was the biggest gainer, up 2 percent followed by SBI, ICICI Bank, Adani Ports, Maruti Suzuki and Coal India whereas ITC, HDFC, Infosys, L&T and Tata Motors were top five contributors to Sensex' losses.

9:44 am Buzzing: Shares of Jubilant Life Sciences gained 1.6 percent intraday as it is going to acquire the radiopharmacy business of Triad Isotopes.

"Jubilant Pharma, a material wholly owned subsidiary of Jubilant Life Sciences, through one of its wholly owned subsidiaries, has signed an asset purchase agreement with Triad Isotopes Inc. and its parent, Isotope Holdings, Inc. to acquire substantially all of the assets which comprise the radiopharmacy business of Triad," as per company release.

The acquisition will facilitate Jubilant forward integrate in the radiopharmaceutical business, thereby helping it better directly serve healthcare providers and their patients with high quality radiopharmaceutical products.

9:31 am Market Update: Benchmark indices extended losses in morning as select banks stocks fell on profit booking.

The Sensex was down 97.81 points at 30,028.40 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 27.55 points to 9,332.35.

9:25 am FII View: Surendra Goyal of Citi says sentiment indicator has risen sharply since bottoming in December 2016 and now stands at +0.5.

Indian equities have delivered 13 percent returns since December 2016, and in USD terms have outperformed emerging markets equities.

At +0.5, the indicator implies limited upside, based on historical trends, Goyal says.

He further says December 2017 Sensex target is 31,500, implying a nearly 5 percent upside from current levels.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks started off last day of the week on a negative note, with the Nifty falling below 9350 level on profit booking after a rally in previous session on account of RBI's approval for amendments to Banking Regulation Act.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 73.03 points at 30,053.18 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 23.20 points to 9,336.70.

Bank stocks continued their run up after President gave a nod to ordinance dealing with NPAs, amendment to Banking Regulation Act.

Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, Lupin, Coal India and Dr Reddy's Labs were early gainers.

The rupee opened 6 paise weaker against the dollar at 64.22 as nationalised banks bought the greenback heavily in early trade.

"The USD seems to have taken a breather ahead of US Jobs data later today and second round of French Presidential elections later this week, after a hawkish FoMC," Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said.

The USD-INR pair continues to consolidate around the current levels. He expects the rupee to trade in the 64.10-64.40 range ahead of the crucial data today.

Asian markets struggled as traders await the US nonfarm payrolls data later and after drops in commodity prices overnight. The Australia's ASX 200 fell 0.74 percent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 1.06 percent. The China's Shanghai Composite shed 0.68 percent.

Markets in Japan and South Korea remain shut for the Children's Day holiday.