Benchmarks make gap-down start; Sensex breaches 15,900 mark

After a day of relief, Indian benchmarks have resumed their south-bound journey in the Friday’s morning trade with a gap-down opening on the back of nagging EU woes, weak US data. Overnight, the US markets slumped again on weak economic data and worries of the Euro zone. Asian equity indices too tumbled on Friday as investors remained concerned over Spain and Greece in Eurozone. Adding fuel to the fire, Moody’s Investors Service cut the long-term debt and deposit ratings of the 16 Spanish banks, saying the government's ability to support some banks had weakened. Back home, Sensex and Nifty lost their crucial 15,900 and 4,850 level respectively, led by most of the index heavyweight along with broader indices. Meanwhile, the rupee fell to a record low against the dollar for the third consecutive day on Friday. Moreover, all the sectoral indices are trading in red zone. BSE Auto index has tumbled by over 2 percent followed by counters like Consumer Durable, Metal, Capital Goods, Banks, Power, Technology, Banks, FMCG and Realty, all plunging by over 1 percent each. The broader indices too were struggling to get some traction and the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 387 shares on the gaining side against 1,027 shares on the losing side while 51 shares remained unchanged. 

Bucking the trend, PSU oil marketing companies like BPCL, HPCL and IOC edged higher in the trade as the international crude prices continued their slide for the sixth day.

The BSE Sensex opened at 15,868.07; about 200 points lower compared to its previous closing of 16,070.48, and has touched a high and a low of 15,894.22 and 15,838.51 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 15,864.87 down by 205.61 points or 1.28%. There was only 1 stock advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a negative start with 26.42% stocks advancing against 70.10% declines. The broader indices too were trading in the red; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined 1.02% and 0.88% respectively.

The major losing sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto down by 2.36%, Metal down by 1.72%, CD down by 1.69%, CG down by 1.52% and Bankex down by 1.21%, while there were no gainers on the index.

The only gainer on the Sensex was SBI up by 0.32%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors was down by 3.04%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 2.58%, Sterlite Industries was down by 2.43%, Hindalco was down by 2.34% and Jindal Steel was down by 2.08% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, India’s demand for gold plunged by 29% at 207.6 tonne in the first quarter of this year mainly on the back of new tax on gold jewellery, increased import duty and depreciating rupee, showed a World Gold Council (WGC) report. In terms of value, it declined by 3% at Rs 56,650 crore. The government’s proposed 1% excise, 4% custom duty hike, which was rolled back following the 21-day nationwide strike by retailers also played its part in affecting the demand.

WGC Managing Director, India and Middle East, Ajay Mitra, while releasing the report said, ‘the beginning of 2012 has been a challenging period for the Indian gold market. Despite all the challenges - price rise, economic slowdowns, rapid social change, gold retains its luster for consumers. We are optimistic that demand levels will normalize in the upcoming months as Indian consumers adjust to the new gold landscape.’

In the first quarter of 2011, the jewellery demand in volume terms also declined by 19% to 152 tonne. On the other hand, in value terms it increased by 10% y-o-y to a record high of Rs 41,480 crore. Further, in value terms, gold investment demand was at Rs 15,170 crore, a 27% y-o-y decline. Investment demand tonnage was down 46% at 55.6 tonne from the previous year.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 4,796.40; about 73 points lower compared to its previous closing of 4,870.20, and has touched a high and a low of 4,813.25 and 4,796.40 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 4,806.60, lower by 63.60 points or 1.31%. There were only 3 stocks advancing against 47 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were SBI up by 0.46%, BPCL up by 0.18% and Cipla up by 0.10%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 2.78%, Sesa Goa down by 2.68%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.51%, Siemens down by 2.42% and Sterlite Industries down by 2.38%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian counters were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite plunged 25.16 points or 1.06% to 2,353.73, Hang Seng Index got thrashed by 434.30 points or 2.26% to 18,766.63, KLSE Composite declined 13.09 points or 0.85% to 1,531.12, Nikkei 225 got pummeled by 207.29 points or 2.34% to 8,669.30, Straits Times Index plummeted 43.53 points or 1.54% to 2,779.08, KOSPI Composite Index got battered 48.92 points or 2.65% to 1,796.32 and Taiwan Weighted slumped 158.17 points or 2.15% to 7,198.60.

Stock market in Indonesia remained closed on Friday owing to a public holiday.