Risk aversion drags Nifty below 6,450

Bank, Capital Goods and Realty scrips among the top losers of the hour

Markets slipped in late morning trades as risk aversion returned as tensions in Ukraine flared up and weak China data renewed concerns about global growth. Financials and L&T were the major draggers of the hour.

The rupee was at a one-week low of 61.53. The pair was last at 61.42/43 versus Thursday's close of 61.17/18.

At 1130 hrs, the Sensex was down 152 points at 21,622 and the Nifty gave off 48 points to trade at 6,444 levels.

Weakness was visible in the broader markets too with the midcap index down 0.8% and the smallcap index slipped 0.6%.

Barring Health Care index which was up 0.6%, all the other sectoral indices were in the negative territory.

Banking index down 2% along with Capital Goods and Realty indices lsoing 1.2% each were the prominent sectoral losers.

Pharma names like Dr Reddys Lab, Cipla and Sun Pharma up 0.4-1.6% were the gainers among Sensex-30.

Hero MotoCorp, Gail India, Infosys, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto and Tata Power up 0.5-1% rounded off the gainers list.

Banking names ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank down 1.4-2.3% were the top losers.

Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Sesa Sterlite, L&T, BHEL, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hindalco and Hindustan Unilever losing 1-2% were the other notable names in red.

The market breadth was very negative on the BSE. 1459 stocks declined while 774 stocks advanced.

in individual names, BF Utilities is locked in lower circuit of 10% at Rs 464 on the BSE after promoter of the company sold over 100,000 equity shares worth of Rs 6.5 crore of the company through open market.

L&T Finance Holdings has dipped nearly 5% to Rs 75.35, extending its previous day’s 7% fall on the BSE, after the promoter Larsen & Toubro (L&T) share sale programme for diluting 4.85% of its stake commenced today at bourses.

Asian Markets

Asian shares dropped to a one-month low and the yen pushed higher on Friday, as heightened tension in Ukraine ahead of a weekend referendum drove investors out of riskier assets.

Solid U.S. retail sales and employment data also reinforced expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will stick to its plan of gradually withdrawing its asset-buying stimulus, while Thursday's disappointing Chinese economic data continued to add to the gloom.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.1%, touching its lowest level since mid-February and on track for a weekly loss of more than 2%.

Japan's Nikkei stock average skidded 2.7% to a one-month low, on track for a weekly loss of more than 5%, as the currency soared.