Markets remain under pressure

Markets continued on the downward spiral in the noon deals following the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) rate hike. Selling was visible across the board in the noon deals. The Sensex has shed 300 points or 1.45% at 18,571  and the S&P CNX Nifty was down 1.6% or 90 points at 5,589.

The RBI in its first quarter policy review maintained its anti inflationary stance and hiked the key interest rates by 50 basis points.
Repo Rate now stands at 8% and the Reverse Repo Rate has increased from 6.5% to 7%. While the CRR is unchanged at 6%. The hike was not in line with the street expectations as many market analysts were expecting RBI to hike interest rates by 25 bps.

Back to markets, most of the Sensex stocks were trading in the red barring a few. Reliance Communication was the top loser among the Sensex stocks, down 5.5% to Rs 101. DLF slipped 3.6% at Rs 235. ICICI Bank was also trading lower by 3.4% to Rs 1,038. Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, SBI, Tata Motors, HDFC, Sterlite Industries, ITC, Bajaj Auto and Hindalco were also trading lower by 1.4-3% each.

On the other hand, Maruti Suzuki and TCS were among the only gainers on the charts.

On the sectoral all the sectoral indices were trading in the negative territory. Rate sensitive sectors were among the worst hit. BSE Realty index was the top loser, down 3% or 69 points at 2,153. BSE Banking index- Bankex slipped 2.5% or 331 points to 12,683. Auto index shed 1.7% to 8,833.
 Capital Goods, FMCG, Metal, Consumer Durables, PSU and Oil & Gas indices also shed 0.7-2% each.

DLF was the top loser among the realty stocks, down nearly 4% to Rs 234. It was followed by Unitech, Indiabulls Real Estate, HDIL, Anant Raj Industries, Orbit Corp, Sobha Developers, D B Realty and Sunteck Realty. All the banking stocks were trading in the red. Kotak Mahindra Bank led the losers chart, down 4.35% at Rs 465. Bank of india, ICICI Bank, PNB, SBI, IDBI Bank, Indusind Bank, Yes Bank and Federal Bank were also trading lower by 2.3-3.5% each.

The broader markets also fell prey to the selling pressure. The BSE mid-cap index shed 62 points to 7,017 levels and the small-cap index was at 8,439, down 66 points.

the overall breadth was extremely negative as 1,835 stocks declined while 855 stocks advanced.

Meanwhile, on the corporate front India's largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki announced its Q1 results. The company reported an increase of 18% in its net profit to Rs 549 crore.