Nifty hovers around 5,950; Financials weigh

Markets continued to trade lower in the late-afternoon session this Tuesday after the Reserve Bank of India announced a slew of measures to curb rupee fall.

RBI last night hiked the lending rates for banks and sucked up of Rs 12,000 crore to stem the continuing fall of rupee, supported the local currency.   Under the measures announced, RBI raised lending rates to commercial banks 2% to 10.25% making the loans costlier.

At 2PM, the 30-share Sensex declined 200 points at 19,833 and the 50-share Nifty shed 79 points at 5,951 levels.

Rupee gained some lost ground and traded at 59.27 per US dollar. The partially convertible currency had lost 33 paise, the most in a week, to close at 59.89 against the dollar yesterday on fresh demand from banks and importers amid disappointing industrial production, a fall in exports and higher inflation.  

Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has pegged the country’s growth at 5.8% this year, owing to slow progress in pushing through the reforms needed to ease business bottlenecks.

Globally, Asian shares traded mixed. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.6% to 14,599, Singapore Straits Times declined 0.5% to 3,219, China’s Shanghai Composite index was up 0.3% at 2,065 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.04% to 21,312 today.

In Europe, France’s CAC declined 0.5% to 3,857, Germany’s DAX fell 0.5% to 8,192 while UK’s FTSE was down 0.14% to 6,577.

Among the key sectoral indices, oil & gas, IT, power gained while realty, capital goods, bankex sectors dropped on the BSE.

The gainers included counters such as ONGC gaining 1.6%, Sun Pharma rose 1.1%, ITC gained 1.7%, Bharti Airtel was up 2% on the BSE.

The laggards were ICICI Bank and SBI shedding 5-5.5% each, HDFC declined 3.6 %, Larsen & Toubro shed 3.6%, Sterlite Industries 3.4% on the BSE.

The key notable movers included counters such as Financial Technologies (India) which is trading lower by 4% to Rs 707, extending its previous day’s 4% fall, after the company said the consumer affairs department has sought an undertaking from its subsidiary National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) that no further contracts will be launched and all existing contracts should be settled on their due dates.

Ashok Leyland has dipped 5% to Rs 16.55 ahead of its April-June (Q1FY14) quarter earnings today. The stock opened at Rs 17.30 and hit a low of Rs 16.20, its lowest value since August 2009, on BSE. A combined 4.75 million shares have changed hands on the counter till early noon deals on BSE and NSE.

The broader markets traded lower with mid-caps and small-caps declining 1-1.3 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was negative. Out of 2,210 stocks traded so far, 1,392 stocks declined while 701 stocks advanced on the BSE.