Markets consolidating post recovery

Following the mid-morning recovery, the markets are now consolidating in the negative territory. The Sensex is now down 88 points at 17,490. The NSE Nifty is down 35 points at 5,227.
______________________________________________________
(Updated at 1210 hrs)

Rate sensitive stocks continue to sag; telecom stocks spurt

Despite the overall recovery in the markets rate sensitive stocks continue to lag behind following the RBI surprise rate hike over the weekend. The RBI had raised repo and reverse repo rates by 25 basis points on Friday after market hours.

The Sensex touched a low of 17,337 in opening trades, but has since recovered and is now down 50 points at 17,528.

The NSE Nifty is down 20 points at 5,243.

The BSE Realty index has shed 2% at 3,268.

The market breadth is negative - out of 2,738 stocks traded so far, 1,484 have declined, 1,165 have advanced and the rest are unchanged.

Jaiprakash Asssociates has shed nearly 2.5% at Rs 150. DLF too is down nearly 2% at Rs 307.

From the financial space - HDFC has declined 2% to Rs 2,640. ICICI Bank has dropped 1.3% to Rs 943, and SBI is down 0.8% at Rs 2,043.

Mahindra & Mahindra has slipped nearly 2% to Rs 1,053. Maruti has declined 1.4% to Rs 1,409. Hero Honda and Tata Motors are down around 0.7% each.

Hindalco, BHEL and Sterlite are the other notable losers among the Sensex components.

Telecome majors - Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications have moved up 2% each to Rs 318 and Rs 171, respectively.

HDFC Bank, suprisingly, has jumped 1.6% to Rs 1,848. ONGC is down 1% at Rs 1,067.