Markets have recovered from the day's low but is still in the negative zone, owing to pressures from global peers. The Sensex had tumbled 250 points this morning to touch its lowest in over five weeks - 17,859. Weakness in select sectors were responsible for the index falling below the 18,000 mark. However, buying in ITC and ONGC in late noon trades, helped the index to recover and touch a high of 18,006. The is now down 200 points at 17,910. Nifty was down 60 points at 5,396.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has agreed to discuss price rise in the Lok Sabha with voting under Rule 184 and a similar discussion with voting in the Rajya Sabha later. This comes in the wake of spiralling inflation, which has led to the RBI raising rates repeatedly. RBI, in its quarterly monetary policy last week, hiked the key repo and reverse repo rates by 50 basis points respectively. Banks are expected to follow the suit.
Asian stocks fell for a second successive day as renewed fears about the health of the global economy rattled financial markets. Nikkei and Seoul Composite shed over 2%, followed by Hang Seng, Taiwan and Straits markets.
Telecom heavyeight, Bharti Airtel, dropped 2% at Rs 424 after reporting 28% fall in Q1 net. Net profit for the quarter under review, stands at Rs 1,215 crore as against Rs 1,682 crore in the year-ago period.
Results also hammered shares of realty heavyweight, DLF. The stock shed 3.2% to Rs 221 after reporting 13% year-on-year decline in its consolidated net profit for the first quarter ended June 2011 at Rs 358 crore on higher input cost and finance charges.
"The aggregate earnings for the June 2011 quarter have been broadly in line with estimates. Among the companies actively tracked by us, the profit after tax (PAT) has grown by 18% till date," said Rajat Rajgarhia, Head-Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
However, ITC and ONGC have helped lessen the Sensex's fall. The indices were up nearly 1% each at rs 207 and Rs 278, respectively. Reliance Infra has gained 3.5% at Rs 564.
Meanwhile, aviation stocks advanced on a declining crude oil price. Easing of crude oil prices may bring down prices of jet fuel prices which accounts for over 50% of airlines' operating cost. Earlier, state-owned oil marketing companies had hiked jet fuel prices by 2.7%, from Sunday, 31 July 2011, midnight as the prices in the international markets were firm. The brent crude is currently at $115 as compared to $118 at the start of the week. Shares of Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Kingfisher Airlines gained 1-2% each.
Larsen & Toubro shed 4% to Rs 1,660. Tata Motors, Jindal Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra and ICICI Bank were among the other big losers.
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