Indian bourses opened in the red as weak global cues and earning worries weighed on sentiment. US stocks tumbled on Friday, their worst three-day slide in 10 months, pulling Asian stocks lower. Selling in information technology and auto stocks pulled the markets deeper into the red.
The Sensex slipped to a low of 16,705.56 and continued to languish in the negative for most of the day. It rebounded into the green in mid-noon trades, a recovery of 172 points from its low. The recovery could be attributed to absence of selling by hedge funds.
Dealers said there were expectations of improved rollover of derivatives contracts in the next two days. Around noon, the Nifty rollovers were in the region of 25-28 per cent, much lower than the average on last Monday before expiry, said the dealers.
However, the recovery was short-lived as the Sensex again extended losses towards close. With tomorrow being a holiday, fears of global markets’ reaction saw traders cut short their long positions.
The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 79.22 points to 16,780.46. The NSE Nifty closed shop at 5,008, down 28 points. In the process, the Sensex declined for the fifth straight day, down 861 points during the period.
The Asian markets ended in the red. The Hang Seng slipped 0.62 per cent and the Nikkei was down 0.74 per cent.
Among sectoral indices, the BSE realty index dropped 3 per cent to 3,648.15 and the auto index shed 2.14 per cent at 7,243.92.
On the other hand, the FMCG index was up 1.14 per cent to 2,803.73.
The market breadth was negative. Out of 2,913 shares traded, 1,747 declined and 1,105 advanced on the BSE. Among the Sensex stocks, Mahindra & Mahindra tumbled 5.24 per cent to Rs 1,073, despite the company reporting a net profit of Rs 413.7 crore, which turned out to be lower than market expectations. Jaiprakash Associates slipped 3.27 per cent.
Some other prominent losers were DLF (2.77 per cent), Tata Steel (2.24 per cent) and Sterlite (1 per cent). Bharti Airtel soared 2.86 per cent, HUL, ITC while Larsen & Toubro advanced by 1-2 per cent.
Jai Corp led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 214.6 crore and Cals Refineries topped the volume chart on the BSE with trades of 17.17 million shares.
“The markets may remain volatile because of factors like credit policy, Republic Day holiday and the US FOMC (federal open markets committee) meeting on January 27,” said Anita Gandhi of Arihant Capital.
