Markets End Deep in Red

Markets extended losses in the last leg of the trade and declined 1% due to selling pressure in financial and mining shares. The Nifty index opened in the green, at 5,734 tracking firm global cues, but quickly turned negative and edged lower as sentiment turned jittery over proposal of a draft mining bill. The index touched a low 5,651 in the afternoon session. Also, cautiousness prevailed ahead of the cabinet re-shuffle this weekend. The S&P CNX Nifty closed down 68 points, at 5,661 and the benchmark Sensex declined 220 points, at 18,858. The metal stocks ended lower after the group of ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave a go ahead to the draft bill for the mining sector, which makes it mandatory for coal miners to share 26% of their net profits with project-affected people. The bill also proposed companies mining other resources to pay 100% of the royalty on their production to the original inhabitants of the project site. Sterlite Industries and Sesa Goa ended down over 4% each, and Coal India declined 8%, at Rs 362.