Indian benchmarks extended the declining streak for the second successive session as funds and retail investors turned jittery tracking a sluggish global trend due to tumbling oil prices. Oil prices came under pressure after a rise in US crude inventories and as hopes that OPEC will find a deal to cut production faded. Market participants around the world also remained nervous given the US election next month, the Federal Reserve's policy meeting in December, and over the health of China's economy. On the domestic front, sentiments were undermined by the report that India has moved up only one rank on the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking this year, a disappointing result for the Narendra Modi government that made several initiatives and has set itself a target to break into the top 50. The Doing Business 2017 report showed that India was placed 130th among 190 countries that had been surveyed for the annual rankings, with Russia, Bhutan, South Africa, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Brazil ranking higher. In the ranking, India has made a substantial improvement in some areas such as electricity connection, but slippage in other areas, including payment of taxes and enforcing contracts, prevented improvement on the rankings that is followed widely by global investors. Furthermore, amidst concerns for wide trade deficit with China, India’s engineering exports are fast losing a huge Chinese market, falling by annualised 57% in September 2016 reflecting subdued demand in some of the core sectors like non-ferrous metals. For the cumulative period of April-September, 2016, India’s engineering exports to China dropped by a sharp 45% to $584.10 million over $1.06 billion in the first half of the previous fiscal. Besides, disappointing earnings by some heavyweights and sustained selling by FIIs too dampened the trading sentiments. Axis Bank's quarterly net profit plunged 83% in the September quarter, while IDBI Bank reported a 53% decline in quarterly net profit. However, losses remained capped with the Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das’s statement that the GDP growth will be around 8 percent this fiscal, while the agriculture sector is expected to grow over 4 percent. Also, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya said the Indian economy has the potential to touch $ 6-8 trillion in the next 15 years, as against $ 2 trillion at present.

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