Unabated selling pressure in select index heavyweights like Reliance, ICICI Bank and ITC saw the market slip yet again. Although, the markets started the day on a positive note, but soon changed course and slipped into red.
The Egypt crisis, fears of corporate slowdown and technical weakness in our markets saw the Sensex tank over 18,000-mark in intra-day trades. The index touched a low of 17,982, and eventually ended at 18,022 - down 305 points. The Nifty shed 88 points to end the day at 5,417. In the broader markets, the midcap index closed in line with Sensex, dropping 1.8% and the smallcap index was down 1.6% at 8,478.
On the Asian front all the indices closed in the green. The top gainers for the day were Jakarta Composite gaining 0.8%, Taiwan Weighted and the Nikkei adding 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. The Hang Seng gained 0.1% to close at 23,483.
In China the official purchasing managers' index (PMI) gauge of manufacturing slipped to 52.9 in January, indicating slowing growth in the sector after December's 53.9 reading.The Shanghai Composite closed adding 0.3%.
The positive mode was seen in the European market too which started in the positive.CAC is up 0.4% while DAX and FTSE are up 0.7% each.
The aviation stocks are trading lower on the bourses since morning after state-owned oil firms hiked jet fuel prices by a massive 4.5%, the biggest hike in almost a year, on the back of spiralling international oil prices. Among the individual stocks – SpiceJet is down 11.4%, Jet Airways is down 9% and Kingfisher Airlines is down nearly 9% on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The exports data, PMI and auto sales data had some encourging figures. India's exports in December rose an annual 36.4% to $22.5 billion, while imports for the month fell 11.1% on the year to $25.1 billion, government data released showed. India's trade deficit in December narrowed to $2.6 billion compared with $8.9 billion in November.
India's manufacturing sector expanded at a slightly faster pace in January on the back of output and new order growth but inflationary pressures persisted, showed HSBC Market Purchasing Managers' Index on Tuesday. This is based on a survey of around 500 companies, whre the index edged up to 56.8 in January from 56.7 in December.This was the 22nd consecutive month the key index of manufacturing in Asia's third-largest economy has been above the reading of 50 that divides growth from contraction.
The vehicle sales data for the month of January was released today. Chennai-based TVS Motor Company today reported a 30%t jump in sales to 165,152 units on a YoY basis while country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India reported a 14.73% jump in sales to 1,09,743 units.Two-wheeler maker Suzuki Motorcycle India reported 40% growth to 28,598 units and Mahindra & Mahindra's vehicle sales rose 22% to 36,718 units.
All the BSE sectoral indices closed in the negative. The major losers were Realty down 4% followed by Auto, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas shedding 2% each. Metal and PSU down 0.8% each were the indices which managed to hold back in the spiralling marktes. The draggers in the realty space were Unitech down 10%, Parsvnath Developers, HDIL,Peninsula Land and Indiabulls Real Estate shed 4% - 7%
Sterlite (Rs 165) up 0.6%, HDFC (Rs 632) and Hindalco(Rs 229) gaining 0.2% an 0.4% respectively were the only gainers on the Sensex.
Tata Motors (Rs 1068) down nearly 7% was the top loser on the Sensex followed by Jindal Steel (Rs 634), Jaiprakash Associates (Rs 79), L&T (Rs 1581), Reliance Communications(Rs 118) and Reliance Infrastructure(Rs 687) lost 3%- 4% each. ICICI Bank (Rs 993), RIL (Rs 895), ITC (Rs 159), Wipro (Rs 428) and NTPC (Rs 185) which shed 2% were the other noteable losers.
The market breadth was very negative. Of the total 2992 stocks traded on the BSE, 1916 stocks had declined while 922 had advanced.
