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Markets extended losses and were down 1.5% each in late noon trades with bank shares leading the decline after the RBI mooted extra provisioning and capital requirement for banks' exposure to companies with unhedged forex exchange positions. Further, the weakness in the rupee and rising crude oil prices also weighed on market sentiment.
At 2:25PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 293 points or 1.5% at 19,170 and the 50-share Nifty was down 91 points or 1.5% at 5,767.
The rupee extended losses today tailing weakness in stocks. The Indian unit was at 60.38/39, down from an intraday high of 59.84. The rupee had again slipped below the 60 mark at 60.03 in early trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, on heavy dollar demand tracking strengthening of the US currency overseas.
Indian services firms lost momentum in June as new business trickled in at the slowest pace in nearly two years, dashing hopes of a sustained pick-up in economic growth, a survey showed on Wednesday. The HSBC Markit Services Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 51.7 in June from May's three-month high of 53.6, in a sign that India's economy is still struggling to climb out of a quagmire of low growth and high inflation.
Asian shares extended their losses after a survey showed that growth in China's services sector sagged to its weakest pace in nine months in June, adding to signs of a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. Investors also turned cautious ahead of the US jobs data on Friday. The Nikkei ended down 0.3%, Shanghai Composite eased 1.4%, Hang Seng dropped 2.5% and Straits Times was down 1.3%.
European shares were trading lower after crude oil prices topped $100/barrel mark amid political uncertainty in Europe. The FTSE-100, CAC-40 and DAX were down over 1.6% each.
Realty index was the top loser among the sectoral indices down 4.6% followed by Metals, Consumer Durables, Power, Bankex, Capital Goods, Oil and Gas all down over 2% each.
Among bank shares, ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC Bank were down 1-4% each while mortgage lender HDFC was down 2.2%.
In the oil and gas segment Reliance Industries was down 2.2% while ONGC was down 2.7% on profit taking after recent gains post the government's decision to double natural gas prices to $8.4 per mBtu.
Larsen & Toubro was down 2.4% on profit taking after the stock gained post huge order wins in June.
Other Sensex losers include, TCS, Bharti Airtel and Dr Reddy's Labs.
FMCG shares were among the Sensex gainers with ITC and Hindustan Unilever marginally up between 0.1-0.3% each.
Among other shares, Tata Power was down 5% to Rs 82.70, extending its previous day’s 2% fall, after ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has changed the ratings outlook of the company to negative from stable.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap index was down 1.6% and the Small-cap index was down 1.3%.
Market breadth continued to remain weak with 1,475 losers and 720.
