Markets remain under pressure

The markets are trading soft this afternoon as there are no signs of a resolution to the volatile political situation in Egypt. The Sensex is quoting at 18166, lower by 229 points and the Nifty is at 5456, down 55 points.

The markets did show signs of a pullback in early noon trades; the Sensex had retraced around 300 points from the 5 mth-lows of 18,038 touched amid the panic-driven gap-down opening in the morning session and was within 50 points of the previous day's closing. But another bout of hammering emerged in what is increasingly becoming a sell-on-every-rise market. The failure of the European markets to provide any ray of hope to their albeit faltering Asian counterparts seem to have led to the renewed bout of selling in late-noon trades.

Sterlite is the top loser on the Sensex, having weakened by 5.5% at Rs 157. Jaiprakash Associates has shed 5.3% at Rs 82 and HDFC has lost 4% at Rs 621. Bharti Airtel, ITC and TCS are the other top losers.

On the other hand, ONGC has soared by 3.5% at Rs 1175. BHEL has gained 1.4% at Rs 2185 and M&M has added 0.8% at Rs 703.

The market breadth is terrible. Out of 2944 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 953 advancing stocks as against 1891 declines.