Sensex down over 200 points; Nifty tanks below 7,500

Markets extended losses in noon trades with HDFC, Oil shares and banks leading the decline

Markets extended losses as investors booked profits in HDFC, oil and financial shares.

At 12:50PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 225 points at 26,148 and the 50-share Nifty was down 72 points at 7,496.

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(updated at 11:20)
Markets are trading in the negative territory lower by 0.4% weighed down by index heavyweight HDFC and Oil and Gas shares. 
 

At 11.20 AM, the Sensex is trading at 25,272 levels lower by 100 points and Nifty is trading at 7,537 levels down by 30 points.
 

The broader markets are trading in line with the large counterparts. BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are lower by 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively.   

 

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(updated at 11.20 AM)
Markets were range bound in morning trades as weakness in heavyweights like RIL, SBI and HDFC capped gains in IT and pharma scrips. At 1050 hrs, the Sensex was up 59 points at 25,431 and the Nifty added 16 points to trade at 7,584.

In the broader markets, the small and midcap indices advanced 0.4-0.7%, outperforming the BSE benchmark index up by 0.2%.

Sectors & Stocks

BSE Metal, Oil & Gas indices were down 0.8% and banking index down 0.3% were the only sectoral indices in red.  

BSE Health Care and Realty indices up 2% each were the top sectoral gainers.

Buying was also visible in Consumer Durables, IT and FMCG pockets, with all the respective indices up 1%

Shares of IT companies are trading higher in the range of 1-4% after Infosys reported a better-than-expected consolidated net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2014 (Q1).

All four large-cap IT stocks - Infosys, TCS, HCL Technologies and Wipro were up in the range of 1-2%. Rolta, Tech Mahindra, KPIT Cummins, NIIT Technologies and Hexaware Technologies added 2-4%.

Real estate companies were in good cheer and rallied up to 6%, extending their Thursday’s rally, after key positive announcements made by the Finance Minister in Budget 2014-15.

Prestige Estates and Oberoi Realty rallied 6% each, whie D B Realty, Phoenix Mills, Godrej Properties, Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) and Unitech were up 2-4%.

The other top gainers among Sensex-30 were Sun Pharma, Hero MotoCorp, HUL, Cipla, Dr Reddys Lab and ITC, all up 1-2.5%.

Among the ones in red were HDFC, Hindalco, Gail India, ONGC, SBI down 1-2.5%.

The market breadth was marginally positive on BSE owing to the resilience in broader markets. 1,156 stocks advanced while 1,021 stocks declined.

Asian Markets

Asian shares recouped early losses on Friday as sentiment in the region proved resilient to Portuguese bank concerns amid signs offshore funds were returning to emerging world assets.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan recovered to be a fraction firmer. Indices in Australia, Singapore and China were all higher, while Japan's Nikkei pared its losses to be off just 0.3%.