The markets have rebounded into green led by fresh buying in SBI and positive cues from the European markets. The Sensex is now up 26 points at 18,097. The NSE Nifty is up five points at 5425.
___________________________________________________
(Updated at 1240 hrs)
The markets have been languishing in the red this afternoon. The Sensex is quoting at 18009, lower by 60 points and the Nifty is at 5399, down 21 points. The midcap and smallcap indices are flat at 7545 and 9642 respectively.
Meanwhile, the food inflation for week ended July 31 rose to 11.4% from 9.5% in the previous week. And the industrial output in June increased at a slower-than-expected 7.1% from a year earlier, its slowest pace in 13 months.
If the bourses have been resilient to all the negative news on the economic front, the credit should go to the improving global market environment, atleast for now. The Asian stocks have come off the day's lows, with the key benchmark indices in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea down in the region of 0.5-1.4%. And trading in US index futures indicate that the Dow would fall by a mere 19 points at opening bell.
The key losers on the BSE are Sterlite (weakened by 1.8% at Rs 169), Wipro (shed 1.4% at Rs 412) and ITC (lost 1.4% at Rs 152). And index heavyweight RIL has shed 0.7% at Rs 975.
On the other hand, SBI has extended its gains and is now up 2.5% at Rs 2670. ONGC is up 1.7% at Rs 1558 and HUL is up 1.4% at Rs 264.
The market breadth is weak. Out of 2892 stocks traded on the BSE, there are 1222 advancing stocks as against 1574 declines.
