Markets Follow Rupee Through The Day

The Indian markets remained on the trail of the rupee's trends today. The rupee was seen close to the 56.50 levels in the middle of the session, after which it regained some strength in the second half of the trading session. The rupee closed at 56.24/dollar at the end of the day. The markets too regained some lost declines, with the Sensex closing 72.03 points lower at 16846.05 which is a de-growth of 0.43%. The Nifty closed at 5109.6, lower by 0.36%.

Asian markets also ended the day negative, maintaining the red throughout because of the persistent concerns over Europe and China.

The European markets opened flat and are now trading positive in the range of 0.25%-0.68%. UK just saw the GDP figures for the second quarter coming in. These have been relatively lower as compared to investor expectations. There was weakness seen in the construction, production and services sectors. In the first quarter of 2012, the GDP dropped by 0.3%. The preliminary estimate of the second quarter figures released by the Office of National Statistics has shown a decline of 0.7%. The FTSE is expected to see a decline on the back of this data.

Domestically, 10 of the 13 sectors declined today, with the heaviest drop seen in Power, Consumer Durables and Capital Goods. Oil & Gas declined today on the delay of the diesel hike by the government. Metals saw the maximum decline, touching 2%. All the stocks in the index were seen dropping by 1%-2%, while Jindal Steel tanked about 4%. FMCG saw an increase because of major companies in the sector posting robust growth figures.

On the results announcement front, Wipro saw yesterday’s effects being prolonged into today’s trading as well, declining by as much as 2.02%. In the IT sector, HCL Tech posted strong results today, which got converted into a 6.02% spike in stock prices. Power Grid Corporation also announced impressive figures and results for Q1 FY13, with sales rising 31% and net profit rising 23% YoY.

Overall, the Indian markets saw a rough decline mid-way, but slowly picked up in the second half of trading. For tomorrow, too, we expect the outlook for markets to remain flat to negative.