Sensex, Nifty under pressure; Reliance, ONGC, Bharti up

1:55 pm SEBI: Capital markets regulator Sebi has sought clarification from the merchant banker of State Bank of Travancore on the firm's proposed Rs 485-crore rights issue. Without disclosing the details, Sebi said "clarifications (are) awaited from lead manager" for the proposed rights issue. In rights issue, shares are issued to existing investors based on their holdings at a pre-determined price and ratio.

According to the latest weekly update to the processing status of draft offer documents filed with Sebi, the regulator said clarifications are awaited on the proposed rights issue of State Bank of Travancore as on January 30 this year. The status is updated on a weekly basis by the regulator and the next update of the status, as on February 6, would be uploaded on Sebi's website the next working day. Sebi said it might issue observations on State Bank of Travancore document within 30 days from the date of receipt of satisfactory reply from the lead merchant bankers to the clarification or additional information sought from them.

1:40 pm Market outlook: The government needs to move faster on the divestment process, as institutional investors are concerned about the government’s approach to the fiscal deficit, feels Gautam Trivedi, MD & CEO, Religare Capital. In an interview, Trivedi says market is having high expectations from the Railway Budget as well as Union Budget. On the positive side, he says foreign investor interest remains strong even as domestic institutions have been booking profits. He expects corporate earnings to grow 10-15 percent this year. Trivedi is cautious on banks, particularly state-owned banks, as he feels the fourth quarter numbers could be even worse than the third quarter ones. HDFC Bank is his top pick in the banking space.

1:30 pm Result: NHPC disappointed street on Tuesday by reporting a 30.6 percent decline (year-on-year) in profit at Rs 180 crore due to higher interest cost.

Profit was expected at Rs 300 crore on revenue of Rs 1,378 crore for the quarter, according to the average of estimates of analysts.

Net sales of the state-run hydro power generation company grew 3.9 percent to Rs 1,167 crore during October-December quarter from Rs 1,123.4 crore in same quarter last fiscal.

Operating profit declined 10.1 percent on yearly basis to Rs 561 crore and margin slipped 740 basis points to 48.1 percent in the quarter gone by. Analysts had expected operating profit at Rs 757 crore and margin at 54.9 percent for the quarter.

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The market continues to be under pressure. The Sensex is down 173.79 points or 0.6 percent at 28948.48, and the Nifty is down 54.40 points or 0.6 percent at 8743.00. About 1156 shares have advanced, 1450 shares declined, and 259 shares are unchanged.

Sesa Sterlite, Reliance, Tata Motors, ONGC and Bharti are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto, M&M, HDFC and SBI.

Signalling strong demand for government bonds, overseas investors have put in bids worth Rs 813 crore, oversubscribing a Rs 310 crore auction for debt securities by more than two times.

The auction was held at 'nse-ebid' platform for allocation of investment limits in government debt securities worth Rs 310 crore (USD 50.2 million). The auction attracted bids for Rs 813 crore (USD 131.64 million), as per the bourse.

At the end of two-hour auction last evening, as many as 43 bids were made in the auction, of which 21 were declared successful. The debt auction quotas give overseas investors the right to invest in debt up to the limit purchased.

Foreign investors have so far put in over Rs 23,000 crore in the debt market in 2015. The equity market has also seen similar trends with overseas fund inflows of more than Rs 18,244 crore since the beginning of the year.