Markets break four-day winning streak

RBI rate hike, negative global cues derail rally; realty takes the hardest knock.

The markets opened on a negative note on the back of RBI rate hike over the weekend. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had raised the repo and reverse repo rates by 25 basis points on Friday after the markets closed. Weak global cues this morning further dampened the sentiment.

The Sensex tumbled to a low of 17,337 in early trades, thereafter attempted a recovery but could only manage to touch a high of 17,559. Rate sensitive stocks were seen under pressure post the RBI move, realty and select financial stocks extended losses towards the close. IT and telecom stocks, however, witnessed some buying.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 168 points at 17,411. In the process, index broke its four-day winning streak wherein the index had rallied over 400 points.

The BSE Realty index plunged almost 4% to 3,211. The Metal index shed 2% at 17,551, and the auto index slipped 1.7% to 7,497.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,919 stocks traded so far, 1,851 declined, 991 advanced.

The NSE Nifty touched a low of 5,187, and finally settled with a loss of 58 points at 5,205.

INDEX SHAKERS...

Jaiprakash Associates slumped 4.5% to Rs 147, and DLF shed 3.5% at Rs 301.

Hindalco dropped 3.3% to Rs 170. Tata Motors tumbled 3% to Rs 760.

HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti slipped around 2.5% each to Rs 2,626, Rs 1,049 and Rs 1,397, respectively.

Tata Steel and ICICI Bank were also down around 2% each at Rs 630 and Rs 935, respectively.

...AND THE MOVERS

Reliance Communications rallied nearly 2% to Rs 171. Bharti Airtel gained 1.5% at Rs 316, and HDFC Bank added 1% to Rs 1,838.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Arss Infra Projects topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 370.28 crore followed by Man Infraconstruction (Rs 228.53 crore), Jubilant Foodworks (Rs 153.37 crore), Reliance (Rs 100.21 crore) and Sesa Goa (Rs 88.72 crore).

Alok Industries led the volume chart with trades of around 12.06 million shares followed by S Kumar Nationwide (9.52 million), Pipavav Shipyard (8.44 million), Man Infraconstruction (5.84 million) and Syncom Healthcare (5.55 million).