Weakness persist in markets; Nifty breaks the 5,000-level

The Indian equity markets continue trading lower on consistence selling in several blue chips across various sectors and foreign institutional investors' outflow. The NSE benchmark Nifty has touched the five-week low by breaking the 5,000-level, while the 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 200 points. Investors were trading cautious amid lasting doubts about the economy because of high inflation and declining margins. On sectoral front, all sectors were trading in red. Capital goods, oil, metal, bank and power stocks were mostly trading notably lower. Realty, healthcare and automobile stocks too were struggling to find support. Information technology and FMCG stocks saw some buying early on, but are drifting lower now. However, shares of PSU oil marketing firms BPCL (down 2.1%) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (down 3%) and Indian Oil Corporaton (down 1.2%) were trading with notable losses following a reduction in petrol prices. On the global front, Asian stocks were also trading lower on feeble global economic scenario. Back home, the market breadth favoring the negative trend; there were 524 shares on the gaining side against 1,955 shares on the losing side while 87 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex plunged by 204.21 points or 1.21% and currently trading at 16,678.46. The index has touched a high and low of 16,872.30 and 16,644.85 respectively.  6 stocks were advancing against 24 declining ones on the index.

The broader indices too lost substantial traction; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined by 1.61% and 1.87% respectively.

Selling was witnessed across the space, so there was no gainer on the BSE sectoral space. However, stocks from Capital Goods down by 4.69%, Power down by 2.62%, Oil & Gas down by 2.15%, Public Sector Undertaking down by 1.52% and Metal down by 1.47% featured in the worst list of the performers.

M&M up by 1.53%, Cipla up by 1.01%, ONGC up by 0.85%, SBI up by 0.82% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.76% were the top gainers on 30 share index- Sensex.

On the flip side, BHEL down by 6.73%, Jaiprakash Associate down by 5.06%, L&T down by 4.86%, Wipro down by 2.97% and Hero MotoCorp down by 2.86% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, India’s services export receipt for the month of September declined by 5.63% to $11.22 billion as compared to $11.89 billion in August, according to the data released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Imports of services also slipped marginally by 1.02% to $6.79 billion in the month under review, compared to $6.86 billion in August.

During the July-September quarter of this fiscal, India’s cumulative export of services amounted to $33.525 billion. Imports, meanwhile, stood at $19.553 billion during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2011-12, as per RBI release.

The services sector, which contributes over 50% to India's GDP, is going through turbulent times off late thanks to the deteriorating situation in Euro-zone and slowing American economic growth. The US and Europe together account for around 75% of India’s services exports. In addition, domestic economic activity too remains vulnerable with depreciating rupee, rising borrowing costs and mounting inflationary pressure taking its toll and making the domestic environment unaccommodating for the service sector.

RBI has recently started releasing provisional aggregate monthly data on India's international trade in services, with a lag of 45 days. This provisional data will undergo a revision once the Balance of Payments (BoP) data is compiled on a quarterly basis, which will be released with a lag of a quarter, the apex bank said.  

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,998.60, lower by 69.90 points or 1.38%. The index has touched a high and a low of 5,059.10 and 4,990.65 respectively. There were 6 stocks advancing against 43 declining ones on the index and one remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were M&M up by 1.42%, Cipla up by 1.11%, SBI up by 0.89%, ONGC up by 0.85%, and Bharti Airtel up by 0.76%.

On the flip side, BHEL down by 6.46% SAIL down by 5.91%, GAIL down by 5.89%, BPCL down by 5.55% and JP Associates down by 4.85%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite plunged 2.05%, Hang Seng lost 2.65%, Jakarta Composite declined 0.83%, KLSE Composite down by 0.10 points, Nikkei 225 descended 0.93%, Straits Times was down by 1.09%, Seoul Composite shed 1.66% and Taiwan Weighted plummeted 1.38%.