Monday, June 20, 2011

DTAA treaty, global woes rob Sensex of 364 pts

Indian equity benchmarks got slaughtered on Monday, dragging to a more-than 18-week low. They saw a sharp drop of 2% on reports that the Mauritius government had agreed to restart talks of revising the double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) treaty with India. This triggered margin calls as well as institutional selling.
Finance Secretary too confirmed that a change in the Indo-Mauritius tax treaty is in the offing. "Mauritius has given its in-principle nod to mull treaty review and we would discuss Mauritius tax treaty in July-August."
"We await Mauritius confirmation on tax treaty review date. We need a framework before levying tax on Mauritius investment and can't arbitrarily tax investment routed from Mauritius," he added. Mauritius government said they would collaborate with the Indian government for all cases.
According to the tax treaty between India and Mauritius, capital gains are to be assessed as per the law of the state of residence of the party. As under the Mauritian law tax is not levied on capital gains, it means capital gains made by a Mauritian entity on its investments in Indian companies’ shares are tax exempt.
DTAA or Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement is a tax treaty that India has with 65 other countries. If NRI is a resident in any of those 65 countries and is paying taxes on the income earned in that country, then he/she is eligible for a lower deduction of tax on income earned in India in that financial year.
After looking at sharp fall in Indian rupee, it seems that foreign institutional investors also stepped in today. Rupee spiked up above 45 a dollar during the day, falling 0.5% over previous closing value. FIIs have net sold of more than Rs 2,000 crore this year (including provisional data).
The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 363.90 points or 2.04%, to close at 17,506.63 and the 50-share NSE Nifty dropped 108.50 points or 2.02%, to end at 5,257.90.
However, Sandeep Shah of Sampriti Capital said, "The real cause for the market sell-off has less to do with the Mauritius news. This news would affect India’s attractiveness from a longer term perspective," he said.
Sandeep Shah expects the Nifty would be ranged between 5,000-5,200 levels. He further stated, "The market will be seen first at 5,000-5,200 levels, but then, a sell-off below 5,000 will be seen as well. The downside is still 4,800-5,000 levels."
Fall in global markets too added some pressure on Indian equities. European markets were trading 0.6-1%, at the time of closing of Indian market. Dow Jones and Nasdaq futures too slipped 0.5% each.
Rajen Shah, CIO Angel Broking feels that there is lot of turmoil in the global markets. "Talks are that probably Spain would be the next after Greece for bailout and Spain is twice the size of Greece, Ireland and Poland put together, so this could also lead to some fall in the markets."
On the domestic front, he said, "There are no triggers and infact Suzuki talking about single digit growth. So in this kind of scenario taking a very bullish call on the market would not be the right thing, I would wait on the sidelines."
The BSE Realty Index was the worst performer, with falling over 4%. Oil & gas, IT, Auto, Power and Metal indices lost 2-3.5%.
Heavyweight Reliance Industries closed at its lowest level since April 2009, with losing over 4% to Rs 833.25 on Nifty. ONGC and TCS (consistent loser since last week) fell 3.6% each.
Among others, ITC, NTPC, Infosys, HDFC Bank, SBI, Wipro, HDFC and L&T were down 1-3%. Cairn India and Tata Motors tumbled 5% each.
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group companies' shares took big knock today - Reliance Communications and Reliance Infrastructure lost 8% & 6%, respectively. Both stocks will be excluded from Sensex with effect from August 8 (Sun Pharma and Coal India will be part of Index). Reliance Capital and Reliance Power dropped 4.5%.
However, Bharti Airtel was the top star, with gaining 2.5%. HUL, Hero Honda and Axis Bank too were gainers.
Broader indices saw major sell-off as compared to benchmarks - Midcap and Smallcap indices tanked 3% each. Market breadth was pathetic - about 10 shares declined for every one share advancing.
Companies, which pledged shares, came in under pressure. GTL crashed 62% and GTL plummeted 43% despite clarification from company.
KS Oils tumbled 21%. Delta Corp, Alok Industries, HDIL, Lanco Infratech, IVRCL and Punj Lloyd fell 6-9%.
Midcaps - SpiceJet, S Kumars Nationwide, Sterlite Tech and TV 18 lost 9-11%.
Smallcaps - Sujana Towers plummeted 16.5%. Sasken Communication, Advanta, Prime Focus and Modern India were down 10-11%.

Total traded turnover was more than Rs 1.85 lakh crore - definitely higher as compared to average of last two weeks.

Source: www.moneycontrol.com

Ravi Jhawar
Summer Intern-Technical Analyst
DENIP Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

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