Markets End Weak Trades In Negative

After opening on a negative note, the Indian markets extended their losses in the late afternoon trades on the back of weak Asian markets and a negative opening in the European markets. The rupee today depreciated to the 56 levels again, which hurt the investors’ sentiments. Selling pressure was seen in most of the Mid-Cap counters on profit booking after the recent gains. Index heavyweights Tata Motors, ICICI Bank and BHEL dragged the Sensex lower by 126 points in the last hour of the trading session, and the Nifty closed down with gains of 0.79%.

European markets continue to trade in the negative territory on the back of the debt crisis. Recent concerns on Spain’s struggling banking sector and the rising borrowing costs have further added woes to the country's ability to solve the crisis. The major indices FTSE, CAC and DAX are trading higher with gains of 0.86%, 0.0.76% and 0.51% respectively.

The Asian markets also closed on a negative note after Chinese officials declined the rumours of stimulus measures to boost growth in the economy.

Dow Jones Futures is currently trading 105 points or 0.84% up at 12506, indicating a negative sentiment in the US markets.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, Auto, Realty and CD were majorly beaten, closing down with losses of 4.10%, 2.51% and 2.48% respectively. Except for IT and Teck, all the other indices were down in the range of 0.32%-1.71%. The Auto index was mainly dragged down mainly by Tata Motors, which closed with losses of 12.14%.

In individual stocks, M&M rose by 0.72% today after the company posted decent numbers for the Mar 2012 quarter. The net sales of the company increased by 39% to Rs 10288 crore and the net profit jumped by 44% to Rs 874 crore. Most of the IT shares went up after the rupee depreciated further to levels of around 56. Stocks like Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Wipro closed higher by 0.64%, 3.80% and 0.65% respectively.

From the Sensex shares, BHEL, DLF, ICICI Bank and Sterlite Industries were the major losers, closing with losses of 3.05%, 2.53%, 2.62% and 2.06% respectively. Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, Sun Pharma and Tata Power closed higher by 0.62%, 2.12%, 2.76% and 1.67% respectively.

Investors should watch out for stocks like McNally Bharat Engineering, MphasiS and BEML, which are due to post their Mar 2012 quarter results. These stocks may see a price movement.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, was negative today. Out of the 3158 stocks traded on the BSE, 1918 declined, 1111 advanced and 129 remained unchanged.

We expect the markets to remain volatile for tomorrow as traders roll over positions from the near-month May 2012 series to the June 2012 series.