Sensex falls over 200 pts, financials drop

Markets continued to trade lower with 30-share Sensex shedding over 250 points this Monday on back of selling pressure witnessed in financials.

Investors also fretted ahead of the Infosys quarterly results later this week that will kick start the earnings season for July-September quarter.

At 10:40AM, the 30-share Sensex fell 245 to trade at 19,670 and the 50-share Nifty declined 74 at 5,833 levels.  

The result season among the index stocks would be kick-started with the Infosys' earnings due on Friday. A heavily-bet Infosys could see large volume pick-up but very little price volatility, said analysts.

Global risk appetite was frail as US shutdown entered its second week, with an October 17 deadline for raising the borrowing limit approaching.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Republican lawmakers won’t increase the ceiling without packaging it with other measures.

The broader markets traded slightly higher with mid-caps and small-caps adding 0.1 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was nearly flat. Out of 1,626 stocks traded, 773 stocks declined while 767 stocks advanced on the BSE.


RUPEE

Rupee opened slightly weak today due to dollar demand from corporates. According to currency dealers, state-run banks are seen buying dollars on behalf of the central bank to boost foreign exchange reserves.

At 10:40AM, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 61.80 per dollar against the Friday’s close of 61.44 on the Interbank Foreign Exchange.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian stocks fell, extending last week’s drop, as U.S. lawmakers wrangle over the debt limit and partial government shutdown.

Japan’s Nikkei fell 1% to 13,874, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 0.7% to 22,962 while Singapore’s Straits Times was tad up 0.06% to 3,140. Financial markets in China are closed for holidays until October 8.


STOCK MOVERS

Domestically, the key sectoral gainers were healthcare and IT while banks, oil & gas, capital goods, realty, PSU, FMCG sectors declined on the BSE.

The laggards were ICICI and HDFC Bank declined 4% and 3.3% respectively, Coal India declined 3.5%, HDFC was down 2.5% on the BSE.  

The gainers were BHEL gaining 0.5%, Tata Steel and Jindal Steel rose 0.8% each, TCS gained 0.6% on  the BSE.