Markets remain bearish, Sensex down 270 points

Sliding for the second day in arow, the benchmark Sensex on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday tumbled by over 270 points on sustained selling pressure,
particularly in realty and banking sector stocks.

With the sentiment continuing to be down a day after the lacklustre interim budget, the BSE barometer fell below the psychologically important 9,000 level during the day.

However, it recouped a part of its losses to settle the day at 9,035.00, a loss of 270.45 points.

The bellwether index had nosedived by 329 points on Monday after the interim budget offered no sops for the industry. In two days of continuing losses, the Sensex has
lost a massive nearly 600 points.

Marketmen said funds indulged in selling on concerns the government’s plan to borrow record amounts this fiscal year. They said investors feared this may drive up interest rates and funding costs at companies.

The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty dropped by 78 points to 2,770.50, after dipping to 2,757.30 on all round selling.

Among 30-share index, barring ITC, all others recorded small to notable losses. Reliance Industries fell for the second day in a row and closed the day lower by 3.90 per cent. IT major Infosys Technologies was down by 3.59 per cent. ICICI Bank too dropped by 5.69 per cent.

The realty segment index suffered the most by losing 4.85 per cent to 1,445.67 points as heavy-weight DLF Ltd, Unitech Ltd, Parsvnath, Indiabulls Realestate and Sobha Developers recorded notable losses.

The consumer Durables was the second worst performer by losing 4.80 per cent to 1,590.95 points followed by Bank index by 4.41 per cent to 4,583.37 points. All the 18 sectoral index participants ended in red.

In the banking segment, the second-largest lender ICICI Bank dropped 5.69 per cent. Yields on bonds due in 2018 climbed near a one-week high after the government indicated that debt sales will exceed the target by 80 per cent.

Metal index fell by 3.98 per cent to 4,830.72 points, IT index by 3.24 per cent to 2,047.62 points, oil and gas index by 2.98 per cent to 6,077.96 points, teck index by 2.68 per cent to 1,724.34 points and power index by 2.55 per cent to 1,734.18 points.

PSU index fell by 2.47 per cent to 5,010.23 points, capital goods index by 1.88 per cent to 6,131.89 points, auto index by 1.68 per cent to 2,541.81 points, healthcare index by 0.87 per cent to 2,635.71 points and FMCG index by 0.74 per cent to 2,019.56 points.

As the selling pressure spread over a wide-front, smallcap index fell by 2.35 per cent to 3,245.99 points and midcap index by 2.31 per cent to 2,857.15 points.