Sensex tanks 427 points after inflation rise hits rate cut hopes

The benchmark Sensex today erased early gains and ended sharply down by over 427 points on selling in capital goods, banking, FMCG and power stocks after rise in retail inflation hit hopes of aggressive rate cuts.

During the week, the Sensex fell 1,216.89 points -- this year's biggest weekly drop. 

After rising to the day's high of 29,183.76 in morning trade following passage of Insurance Bill in Parliament, the Sensex slipped into the negative zone. As participants focussed on retail inflation that rose to three month high of 5.37% in February, up from 5.19% in January, rate-sensitive shares were hit. 

As selling picked up pace, the Sensex touched a low of 28,448.48 before ending at 28,503.30, down 427.11 points, or 1.48%. The gauge had gained over 271 points in yesterday's session on hopes of passage of Insurance Bill.

"The uptick in food inflation could continue into March with rain disruptions over last month causing some short term flare ups....given the limited room to manoeuvre and RBI's challenging task of taking CPI inflation down to 4% by early 2018, the central bank can ill afford to cut policy rates aggressively from here," said Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC.

Markets had opened on a strong footing with Sensex and Nifty regaining 29,000 and 8,800-mark respectively. 

Better-than-expected factory output, which grew 2.6% in January, aided sentiments but inflation played spoilsport. 

The NSE Nifty, which breached the 8,800-level to touch the day's high of 8,849.75 at the outset, succumbed to broad-based selling. It then touched a low of 8,631.75 before settling down 128.25 points, or 1.46%, at 8,647.75.

Major losers that dragged down the key indices were BHEL, L&T, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, Axis Bank, Hindalco, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, SBI, Tata Power and Sesa Sterlite. 

The BSE Small Cap index ended 1.54% lower while Mid-cap index shed 1.37%. 

Bucking the trend, DLF scrip zoomed over 5% after the SAT today quashed a SEBI order that had barred the company from capital markets for 3 years.

Provisional data showed Foreign Portfolio Investors bought shares worth net Rs 733.09 crore yesterday.