Sensex at day's low

The markets continue to fall with the Sensex at day’s low of 19,542 shedding 158 points and the Nifty lost 48 points at 5,860. Except Consumer Durables which is up 1%, all the sectoral indices have slipped into the red.
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(Updated at 1137 hrs)

The BSE benchmark index continues to slip on the back of profit booking seen in Bankex and IT counters. The Sensex is down 141 points at 19,559 and the Nifty shed 42 points at 5,866. However, the broader markets continue to trade in the positive with the smallcap index up 0.6% and the midcap index at 0.1% outperforming the Sensex, down 0.7%

Among the sectoral indices, Consumer durables up nearly 2% and Health Care gaining 0.1% are the only indices in the positive. All the other indices are trading in the negative. Apart from Bankex and IT, Realty down 0.6% followed by Metal and Auto losing 0.5% each are the major sectoral losers.

The draggers in the banking space are Federal Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Punjab National Bank and Indusind Bank down 1% each. On the IT front, Financial Technologies, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies down 0.6%- 1% are the major losers.

The only gainers on the Sensex are Cipla, Hero Honda, BHEL and Reliance Communications gaining between 0.4 -1.5%

Due to the strength in the broader markets, the market breadth continues to remain positive. Of the total 2667 stocks traded on the BSE, 1487 stocks have advanced while 1106 stocks have declined.