Sensex drops over 200 points; Nifty tanks below 8,400

Benchmark share indices continued to trade lower, amid weak Asian cues with China's Shanghai Composite plunging over 5%, dragged by oil and gas shares along with engineering major L&T.

At 1:10PM, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 229 points at 27,891, while the broad-based NSE Nifty was trading 70 points lower at 8,368.

The Indian rupee was trading lower at Rs 61.87 to the US dollar compared to the previous close of Rs 61.83 after the dollar gained against most Asian currencies.

Asian stocks witnessed selling pressure with Chinese shares witnessing a sell-off after recent data showed weak export growth in November. The Shanghai Composite was down nearly 6% and Hang Seng was down 2.6%. The Nikkei closed at 0.7% while the Straits Times was up 0.5%.

BSE Metal index was the top sectoral loser down over 2% followed by FMCG, Power and Consumer Durables indices down nearly 1% each.

Oil prices also extended their long crash with US crude hitting its lowest in five years amid a glut of supply and pressuring energy stocks globally. ONGC has lost 3.4% while RIL has shed early gains and is down 0.5%.

In the capital goods segment, L&T and BHEL were down nearly 2% each.

Power and metal stocks are trading under pressure after the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed nearly 20 applications of power and steel companies seeking exemption from its judgment which cancelled 204 coal mining licences issued since 1993. Tata Power, Sesa Sterlite, Hindalco, NTPC, Tata Steel and Coal India are down between 2-3.5% each.

Cigarette maker ITC which rallied in the recent past is down 0.6% on profit booking.HUL is down 1%.

Sun Pharma has gained 1.6% as its bid to acquire Ranbaxy has received approval from CCI, though with certain riders. Ranbaxy has gained 3% while Dr Reddy’s Lab is up 1%.

Domestic passenger car sales increased 9.52% to 1,56,445 units in November as compared with 1,42,849 units in the year-ago month.Motorcycle sales last month declined 3.05% to 8,53,254 units from 8,80,078 units a year earlier, according to data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

M&M, Baja Auto and Hero Motocorp are up 0.2-0.4% each. However, Tata motors and Maruti Suzuki have lost over 1% each.

Among the telecom stocks Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications are down over 3% each. According to media reports, the apex court today agreed to hear the Centre's plea challenging TDSAT's judgement that allowed 3G intra-circle roaming and issued notices to Airtel, Idea and Vodafone which were allowed to offer 3G services in areas where some of them did not own 3G spectrum.

The broader markets also pared early gains and both the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were down 1% each.

The market breadth weakened further with 1,788 losers and 882 gainers on the BSE.