Markets near day's lows; FMCG shares weigh

Markets were near their day's lows account of profit taking in index heavweights with ITC, HUL and RIL losing the most.

Markets were trading near their day's lows in late trades on Friday on account of profit taking in index heavweights with ITC and Reliance losing the most.

At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 173 points at 22,703 after hitting a intra-day low of 22,679 and the 50-share Nifty was down 56 points at 6,784 after touching an intra-day low of 6,776 so far.

The rupee is trading higher at 60.71 compared to its previous close of 61.07 shrugging off weakness in the equity markets. However, the rupee could weaken later today on account of month-end dollar demand from oil importers.

Asian markets remained subdued for most part of the trading session today as emerging crisis in Ukraine dampened investor sentiment. The Nikkei trimmed most of its early gains to finally end 0.2% higher. Shanghai Composite was down 1%, Hang Seng slipped 1.5% and Straits Times was trading 0.4% down.

The crisis in Ukraine also impacted European shares since early trades with all the major indices in the continent trading with losses. The CAC-40, DAX and FTSE-100 were down 0.2-0.8% each.

The BSE FMCG and Oil and Gas indices were the top losers among the sectoral indices down over 1.7% each followed by Bankex, Capital Goods and Power indices.

FMCG majors ITC and Hindustan Unilever were among the top losers down over 2.3% each contributing the most to the Sensex decline.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was down 1.7%.

Bank shares also trimmed gains amid profit taking in ICICI Bank. ICICI Bank was down 2.5% on profit taking after it's shares firmed up from Rs 1,000 levels in the run-up to its fourth quarter earnings. The bank posted a 15% rise in quarterly net profit, beating estimates, helped by a surge in demand for loans from retail customers and higher fee income. Net profit for Q4 was Rs 2,652 crore compared to Rs 2,304 crore in the same period last year. Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and paid, grew 14.6% to Rs 4,357 crore in the quarter. HDFC Bank was down 0.8%, Axis Bank was down 0.7%.

Other Sensex losers include, TCS and L&T.

The broader markets also witnessed profit taking with BSE Mid-cap down 0.4% and Small-cap index down 0.7%.

Market breadth was weak with 1,555 losers and 1,120 gainers on the BSE.