Markets weak; realty, banking stocks under pressure

Mumbai: The markets are trading sharply lower on the back of heavy selling pressure in realty, banking, power, capital goods and metal stocks. Rate sensitives sectors took huge beating due to repo rate hike.

Asian markets have weakened further, which also fueled sell off in markets. Midcap and small cap stocks have hammered.

At 1030 hrs IST, the Sensex was down 348 points at 14,836 and the Nifty down 94 points at 4,429. The Nifty June Futures was trading at 4,404, a discount of 24 points. Market breadth is negative; 143 shares are advancing while 923 shares declining on the NSE.

Top losing counters were HDFC, DLF, BHEL and HDFC Bank while Idea Cellular, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Grasim gainers.

Realty is the worst hit index on the fears that there may be slowdown in loan growth. Realty index fell 4.89 per cent due to weakness in DLF, HDIL, Unitech, Indiabulls Real, Peninsula Land, Omaxe, Parsvnath, Ansal Properties, Anant Raj Ind and Puravankara Proj.

Bankex slipped 3.5 per cent as selling seen in Kotak Mahindra, Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, Yes Bank and Allahabad Bank.

Power stocks like Suzlon Energy, NTPC, Tata Power, Power Grid Corp, Reliance Power, GVK Power and Reliance Infra also darkened. Index plunged 2.4 per cent.

Capital Goods Index was down 2.4 per cent on the back of selling in BHEL, Rel Ind Infra, Jyoti Structures, BEML, Punj Lloyd and Alstom Projects.

Metal stocks like JSW Steel, Jindal Steel, SAIL, NALCO, Tata Steel and Hindalco are trading in the red. Index skid over two per cent.

Reliance Capital, Ranbaxy Labs, DLF and Reliance Industries were most active counters on the bourses.

Markets at 0956 hrs IST: Markets crash on repo rate hike, weak global cues

The markets have crashed in the opening trade and lost entire gains after RBI hiked repo rate by 25 bps to eight per cent yesterday to squeeze excess liquidity. US and Asian markets also took huge beating as Crude surged by $ 5 to hit $137 per barrel again, which fuel the inflation worries further.

Selling pressure has seen across the board. The experts expect that the RBI may consider another 25-50 bps hike in near term to control rising inflation, which in turns forcing banks to hike lending rates further. This will affect realty and auto stocks as well.

The Sensex has started trading below 15000 and the Nifty is hovering around 4400. At 0956 hrs IST, the Sensex was down 379 points at 14,805 and the Nifty down 107 points at 4,415. The Nifty Junior was down 221 points at 7155 and the CNX Midcap down 136 points at 5922.

Amongst frontliners, BHEL, Bharti Airtel, Ambuja Cements, Unitech, SAIL, DLF, Idea and Ranbaxy Labs were trading weak. However, Cairn India was up over four per cent as crude surged to $137 a barrel.

Asian markets are weak; Nikkei was down two per cent, Shanghai three per cent, Hang Seng 2.5 per cent and Taiwan Weighted three per cent.

US markets tumbled on Wednesday as oil's resurgence lit the fuse of inflation fears, pushing the Dow to a three-month low.

Crude prices jumped more than $ 5 to within sight of the record after a report showed stockpiles in the US fell sharply for the fourth week in a row, intensifying worries of a worsening global crunch. Weakness in the US dollar and supply problems in OPEC member Nigeria encouraged the rally.

The Dow slipped 205.99 points, or 1.68 per cent, to 12,083.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 22.95 points, or 1.69 per cent, to 1,335.49, and the Nasdaq composite index plunged 54.93 points, or 2.24 per cent, to 2,394.01.

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