Nifty struggles near 5,500; Rupee weakness persists

Markets dropped this Tuesday with 50-share Nifty struggling to hold the crucial level of 5,500 on back of profit-booking in banks and oil & gas shares after 4-straight trading gains.

At 10:10AM, the 30-share Sensex fell 200 points at 18,687  and the 50-share Nifty declined 66 points at 5,485 levels.

Investors are now anxiously waiting for any fresh measures with Raghuram Rajan taking over the reins of RBI as the new governor on September 5.

The broader markets were flat with mid-caps falling 0.1 per cent and small-caps gaining 0.1 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 410 stocks traded, 339 stocks advanced while 64 stocks declined on the BSE.

RUPEE

The rupee weakened further in the morning trades today tracking the foreign non-deliverable forward (NDF) markets.

At 10:10AM, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 66.83 per dollar against the yesterday’s close of 66.02 against the dollar on the Interbank Foreign Exchange.


GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian stocks rose on evidence of pick up in global manufacturing. In the US, the Institute for Supply Management is expected to say factory output expanded a third month after gauges from the UK to China showed manufacturing is reviving..

Japan’s Nikkei rose 2.5% to 13,917, Singapore’s Straits Times was flat at 3,055, China’s Shanghai Composite index rose 0.7% at 2,113 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1% to 22,394 today.

STOCK MOVERS

Domestically, the key sectoral indices gainers included auto, metal and realty while bankex, healthcare, FMCG, capital goods sectors lead the drop on the BSE.

The gainers included counters such as BHEL rising 2.2%, Tata Motors gained 2%, ONGC was up 1.8% while Bharti Airtel rose 0.8% on the BSE.

The laggards were HDFC declining 3.7, Hero MotoCorp shed 3%, HDFC Bank fell 1.8%, Reliance Industries dropped 2%  on the BSE.

The key notable stock mover were Radico Khaitan is locked in upper circuit of 5% at Rs 125 on NSE on reports that the company plans to sell a minority stake to Japanese liquor company Suntory Holdings.

Hero MotoCorp has dipped over 3% at Rs 1,965 after the stock turn ex-dividend today. The stock opened at Rs 1,984 and touched a low of Rs 1,951 in early morning deals on BSE. A combined around 5,000 shares change hands on the counter till 0920 hours on BSE and NSE.