Nifty slips below 7,300; Infy down 7%

RIL, HDFC Bank, Hindalco, Coal India among the top losers

Markets continue to languish in red as selling in index heavyweights like Infosys, HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries weighed on the indices in noon deals.

Infosys is under pressure since morning after B G Srinivas, President and Board member tendered his resignation from the company. The stock was down over 7% at Rs 2,945.

At 1315 hrs, the Sensex was down 185 points at 24,370 and the Nifty slipped below the 7,300 level, down 46 points at 7,282.

Broader markets too surrendered its early gains and both the mid and smallcap indices were flat.

On the currency front, the rupee was trading at 58.88/89 versus its previous close of 58.93/94, with dollar selling by some corporates seen but month-end demand for the greenback from importers limiting the rise.

Sectors & Stocks

Among the sectoral indices, only Consumer Durables, FMCG and Health Care were in the green territory with gains between 0.1-0.3%.

IT index down nearly 3% leads the losers list along with Metal, Oil & Gas, Power and Realty indices down 0.5-1%.

Dr Reddys Lab up 1.4% was the top gainer among Sensex-30. Gail India, TCS, SBI, M&M and Axis Bank up 0.5-0.8% were some of the other names in green.

Apart from Infy, Sesa Sterlite, Wipro, HDFC Bank, Hindalco, Cipla, Coal India and Reliance Industries were some of the significant names under pressure.

The market breadth was negative on BSE. 1,454 stocks declined while 1,329 stocks advanced.

Asian Markets

Asian shares inched up to a one-year high on Thursday while global bond prices surged, pushing their yields to multi-month lows, supported by expectations of easier monetary policy from the European Central Bank.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan  rose 0.15%, led by gains in Hong Kong and Singapore shares and hitting one-year highs for the fifth time in the last six sessions.

Japan's Nikkei share average gained 0.1%.