A Low End To The Day, ICICI Bank Down By 3%

The Indian markets saw a sell-off in the mid session of trade, as it managed to recover some losses but finally ended in red. The Nifty closed with a loss of 44 points at 5871 and Sensex closed at 19,290, down by 120 points. Both the indices ended in red with a loss of 0.76%-0.62%.

The advance–decline ratio ended on a negative note at the end of the day. On the NSE, 499 shares closed in green and 862 shares closed in red. 

Top 5 NSE Gainers: Maruti Suzuki ended up by 5.2% as the top gainer on the NSE, followed by Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, GAIL and L&T.

Top 5 NSE Losers: HCL Tech ended the day as the top loser on the NSE, down by 4.8%, followed by Jindal Steel, Reliance, JP Associates and HUL. 

All the sectors ended on a negative note. Realty was down by 2%, IT and Teck ended in red, down by 1.2% and 0.9%. Banks ended on a negative note of 1.4%, Oil & Gas, Metals ended in losses by 1.3% and 1.5% respectively. Healthcare, Capital Goods and Auto ended with minor lossed by 0.5%.

The Asian markets closed on a mixed note as Japan’s Nikkei was the top loser among the Asian indices and closed at 13,880, up by 41 points. Hang Seng is up by 146 points, KOSPI, China’s Shanghai Composite closed flat with a negative bias. 

Buzzers: ICICI Bank fell by 3.6% soon after it announced the January-March quarter earnings. The private sector lender's net profit grew by 21% on a YoY basis to Rs 2304 crore (in line with estimates) in the fourth quarter of FY13. The Net interest income (NIM) rose by 22.5% to Rs 3803 from Rs 3105 crore during the same period.

Maruti Suzuki posted strong Q4 results as the stock rose by 4.7%. The largest passenger car maker's fourth quarter standalone net profit accelerated significantly as its net profit came up at Rs 1148 crore, its stock thus surging to a new 52-week high of Rs 1693 on the NSE.

As we had mentioned earlier, Nifty managed to close above the levels of 5871. But the market has broken the stiff resistance around the levels of 5900. If Nifty sustains below this level, we will see a further down-move.