Markets heading towards seventh day of losses

Markets continue to remain weak amid selling pressure in private banks and FMCG major ITC

Markets continued to remain amid a volatile trading session on Wednesday because of selling pressure in private banks and FMCG major ITC.

At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 93 points at 20,188 and the 50-share Nifty was down 32 points at 5,986.

The rupee firmed up against the US dollar and was trading at 63.65 compared with TUesday's close of 63.71. The rupee rose to a near two-month high of 63.4525 on widespread speculation the Reserve Bank of India may be considering extending its swap facility window to provide dollars to state-run oil companies.

Asian stock witnessed selling pressure on Wednesday on emerging signs that the US Fed may start unwinding its monetary stimulus measures sooner than expected. Nikkei ended marginally lower by 0.15% while Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite were down nearly 2% and Straits Times was down 0.35%.

European share were also trading lower in early trades as investors turned cautious on signs that the US Fed decision may start reducing its bond-buying programme. The CAC-40, DAX and FTSE were trading 0.01-0.5% lower.

The BSE Bankex was the top loser among the sectoral indices on the BSE down 1.2% followed by Realty, Capital Goods, FMCG and Metals indices. Auto and COnsumer Durables were marginally up.
 
Rate sensitive shares were among the top losers on rising fears that the central bank may hike key policy rates after double-digit consumer price inflation. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were among the major Sensex losers along with FMCG major ITC.

Other Sensex losers include, TCS, Bharti Airtel, Sesa Sterlite and  Larsen & Toubro.

Hindustan Unilever was among the top Sensex gainers up 2.3%. Sun Pharma was up 2.1% ahead of its Q2 earnings.

SBI was up 1% after the PSU banking major reported 11% growth in net interest income during the second quarter.

M&M was up 0.8% after the auto major reported nearly 10% growth in Q2 net profit at Rs 989.50 crore compared with Rs 901.80 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were both down 0.6% each.

Market breadth was weak with 1,388 declines and 936 gainers on the BSE.