Markets at day's low

The markets continue to trade in the negative zone in the noon deals with the Sensex hitting the day's low – down 421 points at 19,857, while the S&P CNX Nifty has broken the 6000 mark on the downside. It is hovering at 5989 levels, down 132 points.
 
The weakness in the Indian bourses stems from its Asian peers with Shanghai Composite skidding nearly 3.5% to 2909 on rate hike concerns in China. In Japan, the Nikkei is trading lower by 30 points at 9797 and Hang Seng is also lower by 14 points at 24,012.
 
Back home analysts' expect that markets may continue to fluctuate between gains and losses on raft of global data and valuation concerns."Markets are in a corrective mode because they are close to peak and valuations are expensive. Poor index of industrial production (IIP) data, rate hike concerns in China and liquidity crunch on back of Power Grid FPO are also weighing on the sentiment, "DD Sharma, Sr. Vice President – Research, Anand Rathi said.

“The reason for the sharp fall is because investors are reacting to the news of tightening and commodity price curb in China. Inflation continues to be a worry for emerging markets in the wake of QE2, since the underlying base metal prices and oil have risen sharply. There are concerns stemming from Europe also,” said Vaibhav Sanghavi, Director (Equities), Ambit Holdings Pvt Ltd.

“Due to a combination of these global events, investors are taking risk off the table from global allocation and just waiting and watching as to how the situation pans out. There is further room for downside for the markets in the near future. However, I continue to remain bullish on the Indian markets in the long term,” he added.
 
Meanwhile, Sterlite Industries is the top loser among the Sensex stocks down nearly 3% at Rs 177, followed by Hindalco Industries, Larsen & Toubro and Wipro down more than 1.5% each. Bharti Airtel is the only gainer at 1215 hours among the BSE 30 scrips.
 
The broader markets, which were trading higher, have also slipped into the red. The Mid-cap index is down 21 points at 8426 and the Small-cap index is lower by 34 points at 10,851.
 
All sectoral indices are trading in the red. The BSE Metal index is the top loser, down 254 points at 16,854, followed by Capital Goods, IT and Oil & Gas indices.
 
Overall market breadth is negative as out of 2987 stocks traded on the BSE, 1058 stocks are advancing while 1726 stocks are declining.