Sensex falls over 180 points amid selloff in IT, banking stocks
The BSE Sensex fell 0.9 per cent after a positive start amid a selloff in banking and IT stocks. The Nifty breached the key 6,000 levels, but the rupee traded higher at 62.52 per dollar.
Several dealers told Reuters that multiple trades were placed shorting index futures, which led to the sudden slump. One dealer said 850,000 Nifty futures were traded from 10:25 to 10:28 a.m., taking the index from 6,045 to 6,002 levels, adding that represented about one-third of the volumes for the day.
Market analyst Sarvendra Srivastava said some amount of basket selling might be coming through, which has led to the sharp fall.
"There has been damage to the short and medium term trend and repair can take some time. Volatility is the name of the game for the next few sessions," he added.
Anil Manghnani of Modern Shares and Stock Brokers told NDTV that there are a lot of supports between 5,935-5,835. 5,935 is the 50-week moving average, while 5,835 is the 20- month average, he added.
"Don't be in a rush to buy," Mr Manghnani said.
Outlook remained cautious as part of an emerging market shakeout driven by the Federal Reserve's gradual scaledown of monetary stimulus and fears of a slowdown in China.
Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 576 crore on Wednesday, bringing their total over the previous nine sessions - or roughly since the start of the emerging market selloff - to around $900 million.
As of 10.36 a.m., the Sensex traded 171 points lower at 20,090, while the Nifty traded at 5,969, down 53 points.
Banking and IT stocks fell over 1 per cent. IT stocks fell tracking Cognizant Technology Solutions' weak revenue guidance for 2014. Cognizant, which reported Q4 results on Wednesday, said it expects annual revenues to grow at 16.5 per cent year-on-year as compared to its 2013 growth rate of 20.4 per cent.
Analysts were expecting Cognizant to grow revenue by 17-20 per cent in 2014, Reuters reported. Cognizant, which fell as much as 7 per cent in morning trading on Wednesday, ended 4.3 per cent lower to $92.85.
TCS traded 2 per cent lower, while HCL Tech was down 1.8 per cent. Infosys traded 1 per cent lower. Among banking stocks, ICICI Bank traded 1.1 per cent lower, while State Bank of India was down 1.2 per cent.
BHEL, which reported quarterly numbers yesterday, was the top Nifty loser, down 3.7 per cent.
Global cues:
Asian stocks rose modestly on Thursday as markets stabilized further after sharp losses earlier in the week. Stocks rose even though Wall Street had a lacklustre session after a survey by payrolls processor ADP found businesses added 175,000 jobs last month, slightly lower than economists expected.
Investors are holding tight ahead of interest rate policy meetings by the European Central Bank and Bank of England later Thursday and a US report on non-farm payrolls for January on Friday.
While no change in policy is expected from the bank meetings, the results of the US job report will provide an important clue to the state of the world's largest economy. That in turn will guide policymakers at the US Federal Reserve, who have been scaling back stimulus that has helped fuel gains in world markets.
(With inputs from agencies)