Markets have a tumultous session

The benchmark indices had a turbulent ride through the day on the back of turmoil across the global market front. The Sensex gravitated in a range of more than 200 points before ending the session at 17,870, lower by 115 points and the Nifty shut shop at 5366, down 30 points. More importantly, the NSE benchmark ended below the 5400 mark, which is considered crucial from the technical and derivatives point of view. The midcap index ended at 6814, lower by 56 points and the smallcap index ended at 8174, down 75 points.

World stocks have touched three-month lows as Greece's 18-month sovereign debt crisis has brought its government to the brink of collapse; the austerity measures have resulted in pitched battles between the people and riot police. Athens is seeking to make budget cuts worth 28 billion euros over the next four years to meet the eligibility requirements for the release of the next tranche of aid - 12bn euros - from the European Union and IMF.

There was red across the Asian Street, with the Hang Seng, Nikkei and Seoul shedding nearly a percent each. European markets are also having a bad session, with the FTSE, CAC and DAX losing around a percent each in mid-day trades, on fears that a Greek default could spark "contagion" across Europe, inflicting major damage on big banks in France and Germany. And the ripples are being felt back home.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou changed his finance minister in an attempt to push through unpopular austerity measures demanded by the EU.

Information technology stocks had a rough ride on the back of weak economic data in the US and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Data showed that manufacturing activity in the US deteriorated sharply in the New York region in June 2011. TCS weakened by 3.5% at Rs 1110 to top the losers list on the BSE. Among the other IT heavyweights, Wipro shed 1.6% at Rs 409 and
Infosys lost 1.2% at Rs 2764.

Reliance Industries ended lower by 2.2% at Rs 868, its lowest since May 2009 and extending its five-day decline of 6%, on reports that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointed out that the company was shown undue favours by the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas and the Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) in its Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin block, causing a huge loss to the exchequer.

On the other hand, Tata Steel strengthened by 3.4% at Rs 572 to top the gainers list on the BSE after selling its entire stake in Australia’s Riversdale Mining to Rio Tinto Group for A$1.06 billion (Rs 5,012 crore). There was something to cheer on the much-battered telecom space, with Bharti Airtel gaining 2.5% at Rs 380 and RCom adding 1.4% at Rs 95. The banking sector also rebounded post the credit policy on Thursday; HDFC Bank jumped by 0.3% at Rs 2350, ICICI Bank gained 0.2% at Rs 1031 and SBI added 0.2% at Rs 2211.

The market breadth was weak. Out of 3018 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 956 advancing stocks as against 1946 declines.