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Erasing all its morning losses, markets inched into the positive territory on the back of gains in index heavyweights like Infosys, TCS, Reliance Industries and ITC.
At 1510 hrs, the Sensex was up nine points at 17,982 and the Nifty was flat at 5,285.
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(Updated at 1510 hrs)
Markets pared losses in the afternoon session this Wednesday on back of buying witnessed in software exporters amid expectations of margin improvement after rupee touched yet another record low of 68 per US dollar.
Life Insurance Corporation was spotted buying shares on Wednesday which allowed India's main indexes to cut losses, Reuters reported today.
At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex declined 75 points at 17,892 and the 50-share Nifty dropped 35 at 5,252 levels.
Investor sentiments, however, remained weak on lingering fear that the country’s fiscal deficit may widen further after Lok Sabha approved $20 billion plan to provide cheap food to poor people.
Risk appetite further dampened on fear over military action by the US after Secretary of State John Kerry held Syrian government accountable for using chemical weapons in an attack over civilians.
The broader markets fell with mid-caps and small-caps dropping 1.2-1.6 per cent on the BSE.
The market breadth was negative. Out of 2,131 stocks traded, 1,403 stocks declined while 605 stocks advanced on the BSE.
RUPEE
The rupee once again weakened against the dollar in today due to month-end dollar demand, said currency dealers.
At 2:20PM, the rupee was trading at Rs 67.98 per dollar compared to Tuesday's close of 66.24/25 on the Interbank Foreign Exchange. The currency touched an all-time low of Rs 68.75 in early trades.
The previous all-time low was Rs 66.19 per dollar, a level the rupee had ended on yesterday. The currency has fallen more than 8% so far this week.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian stocks fell while Brent crude surged to over 2-year high on brewing tensions between Syria and US.
Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.5% to 13,338, Singapore’s Straits Times fell 1% to 3,002, China’s Shanghai Composite index was down 0.1% at 2,101 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.6 % to 21,52 4 today.
European markets also opened lower. France’s CAC was tad up 0.1% to 3,973, Germany’s DAX shed 0.4% to 8,204 while UK’s FTSE was down 0.3% to 6,422.
STOCK MOVERS
Domestically, barring IT and metal index, rest all declined with banks, realty, capital goods, oil & gas, PSU leading the drop on the BSE.
The gainers included counters such as Tata Power rising 3.4%, Wipro and TCS gained 3.2% each, Jindal Steel gained 3% while Hindalco Industries was up 1.9% on the BSE.
The laggards were ONGC declined 7.8%, HDFC shed 7%, GAIL fell over 4% while Bharti Airtel declined 2.8% on the BSE.
The key notable movers included counters such as ITC has moved higher by 2% at Rs 303, bouncing back over 6% from intra-day low, after the board of diversified company fixes a merger ratio.
Strides Arcolab is trading higher 4% at Rs 863 on reports that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has cleared the long-pending $1.8-billion investment proposal by US generic drug maker Mylan Inc, to acquire Strides Arcolab’s injectible unit, Agila Specialities.
