Weak rupee, global growth worries drag Nifty to 2-month low

The decline was led by financials with the Bank Nifty down over 2%

Markets continued to trade lower, amid overnight drop in US stocks and weakness  in Asian,  with financials stocks leading the decline. However, IT exporters Infosys and TCS were the gainers among index stocks.

At 9:45AM, the 30-share Sensex was down 384 points at 27,196 and the 50-share Nifty was down 133 points at 8,240.

In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were down over 1.2% each. Market breadth was weak with 1,558 losers and 339 gainers on the BSE.

Meanwhile, a survey on China's manufacturing sector slumped to a six-and-a-half-year low which further weighed on the sentiments.

RUPEE

The rupee weakened by  27 paise to trade at fresh two-year low of 65.81 against the dollar today on concerns over capital outflows by foreign funds.

Foreign funds were net sellers in equities to the tune of Rs 1,007 crore on Thursday, as per provisional data on the stock exchange.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian markets were trading lower amid weak factory growth from China. The Shanghai Composite was down over 3% while Nikkei, Straits Times and Hang Seng were down over 2% each.

Wall Street cracked with the S&P 500 ending at a more-than-six-month low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite dropping 2.06% and 2.82 %, respectively, as investors remained wary of the interest rate hike by the Fed amid concerns led by the slowdown in China.

SECTORS & STOCKS

The Bankex was the top sectoral loser along with capital goods, metal  and auto among others. However, IT index was trading with marginal gains.

Mukesh Ambani may integrate mobile and television newsroom as he readies the roll out of his most ambitious venture to date, Reliance Jio. Ambani has a three-pronged strategy for his foray into fourth generation (4G) telecom services — broadband networks, affordable smartphones and the availability of rich content and applications. Network 18 was down over 2%.

Amtek Auto rebounded after the sharp decline in the previous sessions. The stock was up 7%.. The stock had crashed on worries over huge debt and exclusion from the F&O segment.

In the financial space, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank were down 0.5-2.5% each.

Other Sensex losers include, L&T, ITC, Bharti Airtel and RIL among others.

Infosys has launched three new services which, it said, would work as a catalyst in positioning it as a next-generation services company. The three initiatives together would be known as ‘Aikido’, name of a popular Japanese martial art. Infosys was up 1.6% and TCS gained 0.7%.