It is a day of consolidation, albeit with a negative bias. The Sensex is now quoting at 17219, lower by 110 points and the Nifty is at 5164, down 28 points. Although these numbers pale into insignificance when seen in light of the more-than-3% rally seen on Monday, they do reflect the pervasive mood across global markets this morning. For the Asian markets are seeing a bit of profit-booking, with the Hang Seng and Nikkei losing about a per cent each, and pre-market trading in Dow futures suggests a soft opening on Wall Street. The midcap and smallcap indices are trading flat at 6991 and 8966 respectively. Realty, metal and IT stocks are trading weak.
The US stocks had registered their biggest one-day gain in over a year on Monday as an agreement on a $1 trillion emergency rescue package from the EU quelled fears a new credit crisis would derail European economies. The Dow Jones gained 404.71 points or 3.90%, Nasdaq Composite added 109.03 points or 4.81% and Standard & Poor's 500 rose 48.85 points or 4.40%.
The top losers on the Sensex are ONGC (weakened by 2.2% at Rs 1028), Bharti Airtel (lower by 2.1% at Rs 288) and DLF (down 2.1% at Rs 297). And index heavyweight RIL has edged lower by 0.3% at Rs 1077.
On the other hand, M&M has strengthened by 1.4% at Rs 561, Jaiprakash Associates has added 1.3% at Rs 136 and Hero Honda has advanced by 0.9% at Rs 1904. And the hitherto battered RNRL has bounced back by 2.2% at Rs 51.
The market breadth is positive. Out of 2406 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1264 advancing stocks as against 1045 declines.