Bears Dominate Last Hour Of Trade

The Indian markets erased two days’ gains to end near today’s low as traders booked profits. After touching a high of 6055.95, the Nifty has slid down and ended 54 points lower at 6001. The Sensex closed down by 190 points at 19795.99. Both indices dropped in the range of 0.90%-0.95%.

The advance-decline ratio was extremely negative at the end of the day. On the NSE, 298 shares have advanced and 1161 shares have declined.

Top 5 NSE Gainers: Reliance Industries maintained its position as the top gainer, closing up by 1.68%. Among other gainers were HCL Technologies, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Power Grid Corporation and Tata Consultancy.

Top 5 NSE Losers: Hindalco Industries is among the strongest losers, down by 4.42%, followed by Jaiprakash Associates, Tata Motors, Reliance Infrastructure and Maruti Suzuki.

Most of the sectors ended the day in the red. Oil & Gas managed to close on a positive note, up by 0.08%. Auto, Bankex and Metals saw a heavy sell-off, trading down between 1.81%-2.5%.

Most of the Asian market ended on a negative note. Nikkei 225 suffered the biggest fall in eight months (as the Yen rebounded) to close down by 2.63%, followed by Taiwan Weighted, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng.

The European markets are also witnessing losses. FTSE 100 is trading down by 0.49%, followed by CAC 40 down by 0.40% and DAX which is down by 0.24%.

Buzzers: Bajaj Auto disappointed the street with its Q3 results. The stock slipped down by 1.84% to touch Rs 2076. It reported an almost 100 basis points drop in operating margins for the quarter ended Dec 2012 as compared to those in the previous year’s corresponding period.

Strides Arcolab rallied 1.88% to touch Rs 1080, extending its more than 3% gain in the past two days on reports that Pfizer Inc. is among other companies in the race to buy its injectable medicines unit, Agila Specialties.

The market has broken the short-term support of 6020. Going ahead, it may take support at the 5970 level.