Markets open lower, US debt woes weigh

Markets opened on a negative note this Monday tracking weak Asian shares on weighing concerns over US debt limit and government shutdown.

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

At 09:20AM, the 30-share Sensex fell 115 to trade at 19,794 and the 50-share Nifty declined 41 at 5,866 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 positive. Out of 504 stocks traded, 285 stocks advanced while 182 stocks declined on the BSE.


RUPEE

Rupee opened slightly weak on back of fresh buying of dollar by custodian banks.

At 09:20AM, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 61.63 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 FMCG and IT while banks, oil & gas, capital goods, realty, PSU, metal sectors declined on the BSE.

The laggards were Dr Reddy’s falling 0.5%, Reliance Industries declined 0.9%, Coal India dropped 0.6% while Bharti Airtel shed 0.6% on the BSE.  

The gainers were SBI rising 0.6%, ITC gained 0.3%, TCS rose 0.3% while Hero MotoCorp and Mahindra & Mahindra were up 0.2% each the BSE.