Sensex ends over 200 points lower on weak European cues

Markets have closed near day’s low amid choppy trades tracking weak performance among European peers.

Investors maintained cautious stance ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's fourth bi-monthly monetary policy review for the year 2015-16 which is scheduled tomorrow.

Provisionally, the Sensex closed down by 236.03 points at 25,627.47 and the Nifty slipped 67.10 points at 7,801.40.


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Updated at 3 pm


Markets are trading with weakness in the first day of the October series as participants remain edgy ahead of the fourth bi-monthly monetary policy review for the year 2015-16 slated tomorrow amid persistent sell-off by the foreign investors. Meanwhile, losses in the global peers on caution ahead of the US jobs data due to be unveiled later during the week further hurt the trading sentiments.

At 3 PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 185 points at 25,678 and the 50-share Nifty has lost 52 point at 7,816. In the broader market, the BSE MidCap index and SmallCap index are flat with positive bias. Market breadth was positive with 1,396 gainers and 1,296 losers on the BSE.

MERGER

In the first ever merger of two regulators, over 60-year-old FMC (Forward Markets Commission) will merge with the younger but much bigger capital markets watchdog Sebi to create a unified regulatory body.

RUPEE

The rupee was trading higher by 7 paise at 66.08 against the US currency on bouts of dollar selling by banks and exporters.

KEY STOCKS

On the sectoral front, BSE Auto, Capital Goods, Mrtal and IT indices are losing sheen and have lost up to 2%. However, Bankex, Realty and Consumer Durables are trading higher up to 3%.

Dr Reddy's Labs has surged 5.7% after the drug maker announced the launch of Esomeprazole Magnesium Delayed-release capsules, which is the generic version of AstraZeneca's Nexium, in the US market. Lupin, Cipla have gained between 1-4%.

However, Sun Pharmaceutical has lost 3% after the US Food and Drugs Administration (USFDA) withdrew an approval granted in March to SPARC’s anti-epileptic drug due to regulatory compliance issues at Sun Pharma's Halol plant.

Bank and realty stocks have gained across after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced measures to enhance commercial banks' ability to recover loans to borrowing entities which are under stress primarily due to operational/managerial inefficiencies of the existing promoters. In the banking space, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and SBI are up between 0.3-1.3%. Among the realty majors, HDIL, Sobha Realty, Mahindra Lifespace and Prestige Estates, DLF and Prestige Estates gave climbed between 2.5-6%. 

Select IT shares are down amid an appreciating rupee. Infosys and Wipro are down 1.6% and 2.8%  each.

Metal shares continue to trade lower on growth concerns in the world’s second largest economy, China. Vedanta, Tata Steel and Hindalco have slumped between 1-3%.

Auto shares have declined across the exchange as companies start announcing monthly sales volume data for September 2015 from Thursday, October 1, 2015. Tata Motors, Hero Motocorp and Maruti Suzuki have lost between 0.3-4%.

GLOBAL STOCKS

Global markets were trading mixed with shares in Japan easing after recent gains. The benchmark Nikkei ended down 1.3% while Shanghai COmposite was up 0.3% and Hang Seng gained 0.4%.

European stock markets kicked off the week in negative territory on Monday, with trading sentiment hurt by another weak data release from China and a continued slide AFTER after data showed China's industrial profits fell 8.8% in August indicating that the economic slowdown in China has started affecting the corporate profits.