No respite yet; Sensex closes 130 points lower

Major headlines

Food inflation eases to 13.07% versus 17.05%

Cairn India Q3 consolidated net profit rises seven-fold

IOC Q3 net profit surges two-fold



Indian indices

There is no change in the markets mood as the weakness still persists. Selling trend is what the investors have been following, which is worsening the sentiments day by day. The Nifty touched the 5200-mark during the day for the first time since June 14, 2010. Consistent selling in telecom, oil & gas, realty stocks and also in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, State Bank of India, Bharti Airtel, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Hindustan Unilever was putting pressure.

Easing of food inflation to 13.07% for the week ended January 29, 2011 as compared to 17.05% seen in the previous week was unable to provide any relief to the falling market. Volatility prevailed and the markets saw lowest close in seven months.

Tata Motors from the auto pack gained more than 2% followed by Maruti Suzuki, Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto and Mahindra & Mahindra with 0.5-1.3% rise. Heavyweights like Larsen & Toubro and ITC rallied.

In Midcap space, Jyothy Laboratories, OnMobile Global, Prestige Estate, Jain Irrigation and Sterlite Technologies rallied 7-10% while Sunteck Realty plunged 20%. Parsvnath Developers, Indian Hotels, Honeywell Automation and Techno Electric fell 8-12%.

In Smallcap space, Dion Global, Rollatainers, Polyplex Corp, Bliss GVS and West Coast Paper jumped 7-12% whereas Tilaknagar Industries, Minda Industries, R M Mohite, Allied Digital Services and Everest Industries lost 10-12%.

New listing - Omkar Special Chemicals closed at Rs46.20, down almost 53% as compared to its issue price of Rs98 per share.

The Sensex began the session at 17603, higher by 10 points from its previous close and immediately hit the day's high of 17637. Gains were short-lived and the Sensex slipped in the red zone, hitting the day's low of 17363 in mid-morning session. Weak trade continued in the afternoon session to close on a negative note.

The Sensex closed 130 points lower at 17463 and the Nifty fell 28 points to shut at 5226.

Market sentiment

The market breadth remained weak as declining stocks outpaced the gaining ones. Out of the 2,968 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,811 fell while 1,032 rose. Whereas, 125 stocks traded unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Gains were seen in 4 out of 13 sectoral indices. Among gainers, BSE Auto surged the most by 0.83%, followed by BSE Power up by 0.82%, while BSE Health Care (HC) and BSE Capital Goods (CG) advanced 0.58% and 0.03% respectively. Among losers, BSE TECk slid the most by 1.54%, followed by BSE Information Technology (IT) down by 1.53% and BSE Realty dropped by 1.03%.

Looking into 'A' group stocks, Lanco Infratech was the biggest gainer up by 20.62%, followed by GMR Infrastructure up by 13.54% and Jain Irrigation rose by 9.85%. Among laggards, IL&FS Transportation was the major loser down by 11.79%, followed by Tata Communications down by 8.90% and Indian Hotels declined by 8.22%.

Viewing volumes

India’s second largest developer - Unitech was traded the most with over 1.51 crore shares changing hands on the BSE. Following that ADAG group telecom firm - Reliance Communications (0.77 crore shares), leading infrastructure firm - Lanco Infratech (0.73 crore shares), an India-based agri-business company - Jain Irrigation (0.62 crore shares) and leading engineering company - Punj Lloyd (0.55 crore shares).

Global signals

European shares fell on Thursday, with Air France lower after a profit warning, and other stocks such as Diageo down after earnings missed forecasts.

All the major Asian indices closed in the negative zone except China’s Shanghai Composite that ended the session higher by 1.59%.

Wall Street is set for a negative start today as US stock index futures are seen lower on earnings.

Market outlook: In the US, investors will keep an eye on the weekly jobless claims data.