Marketmen have welcomed the first phase of voting with skepticism. Snapping an eight-day rally, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index, or Sensex, fell by nearly 3 per cent today due to profit-booking by domestic institutional investors (DIIs), especially observed in realty, metal and energy sectors.
The first round of voting, with 124 seats out of the 543-member Parliament began today. The Sensex closed the day at 10,947, down 2.99 per cent or 337 points. The broader index S&P CNX Nifty closed at 3,369 point, down 3.29 per cent or 115 points.
“Profit-taking will make markets more healthy. Anticipation of better-than-expected results of top US banks has been a cause for rally and, going further, this will only set the market direction rather than domestic events. However, markets would be more volatile once election results start coming in the first week of May,” said Ramdeo Agarwal, joint partner of Mumbai-based Motilal Oswal.
In today’s fall, bank stocks – such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India – fell as they faced resistance on further up-side. Since March 30, the BSE Bankex index had leapt by 25.5 per cent.
Among the Sensex stocks, the top losers were Tata Motors (down 13.5 per cent), Tata Steel (down 8.25 per cent) and Reliance Infrastructure (down 9.36 per cent). Index heavyweight Reliance Industries fell 4.88 per cent too.
Top drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories today fell 6.81 to Rs 186 on reports that company had lost over Rs 2,500 crore in forex hedging. It had reported foreign exchange-related loss of Rs 784 crore in the December quarter too.
