Sensex ends down 190pts

The Sensex ends (provisional) at 15,668 - down 190 points. Nifty ended down 46 points at 4,710.
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(Updated at 1437 hrs)

Markets have slipped once again after trading sideways, following cues from Asian peers. The Sensex after touching a low of 15,672 recovered in late-morning. The BSE benchmark index, dropped once again to 15,722 - down 137 points. Nifty was down 42 points at 4,715.

Asian markets slipped as the Euro fell to seven-week lows. Investors took to selling safer assets such as gold and government bonds in Japan, as doubts continued to plague the market on the Euro Zone debt crisis. On Thursday, euro zone’s three biggest nations ruled out calling on the European Central Bank to intervene and help tackle region’s sovereign debt crisis. Nikkei ended flat at 8,160. Hang Seng, Taiwan Weighted, Straits Times and Seoul Composite slumped around 1% each.

The Union Cabinet allowed 51% and 100% FDI in multi-brand and single-brand retail, respectively. The decision was taken by the cabinet in a meeting later on Thursday amid protests from UPA allies, cleared the proposal along with a set of stringent riders, which may pose a hurdle to many foreign players. Retail stocks and airline shares surged today on the back of this news.

V2 Retail, Pantaloon Retail, Store One Retail and Trent were up 8-20% each. On Thursday, too, these jumped by as much as 14%.

"Reforms is need of the hour Retail can get good response while Aviation i have my own doubts as Government has delayed so much to open up. when India is pushed to the wall we reforms, it has become need of the hour but if we don't do it we will miss FDI Inflow," said AK Prabhakar of Anand Rathi.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday also approved the long-awaited Companies Bill that will completely recast the key provisions of the decades-old Companies Act 1956.

Rupee remained weak and was trading at 52.26 against the dollar today on good demand for the American currency from banks and importers in view of a higher dollar in overseas markets.

"I believe that had the rupee deceleration been controlled when it touched 50 by systematic RBI intervention, then we wouldn’t have witnessed such a sharp decline. But now we are in a sticky situation as the free fall has been allowed to such a large extent," said DD Sharma, Senior Vice-President Equity Research, Anand Rathi.

BSE realty index gained 2% at 1,591 as investors took to bargain hunting. Phoenix Mills rose 7% on hopes of more investments as a result of the government's decision to allow FDI in retail. Peninsula Land, DLF, Sobha Developers, Indiabulls Real Estate and Godrej Properties were up 2-6% each.

IT shares showed weakness on continuing Euro Zone worries. the index was the biggest loser among sectoral indices and dropped 2% to 5,410. Infosys slipped 2.5% to Rs 2,601 after the company said it might miss the upper end of its sales targets for Q3 December 2011 and also for the year ending March 2012. TCS declined 2.8% to Rs 1,059. Wipro, MphasiS and Tech Mahindra shed aroudn 2% each.

Food Minister KV Thomas today said the government will consider more sugar exports after assessing the progress of domestic crushing activities and global prices. Shares of KM Sugar Mills, Ponni Sugar Erode, Rajshree Sugar, Balrampur Chini and Bajaj Hindustan gained 1-7% each.