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Sensex, Nifty Decline, Tata Motors Among Top Losers
Tata Motors shares fall after carmaker reports its largest quarterly loss Carmaker's earnings hurt by impairment charge for Jaguar Land Rover RBI on Thursday surprised markets by reducing key interest rate
08 Feb 2019, 02:17 PM IST 
Auto stocks, led by Tata Motors, dragged the markets lower
- At 1:25 pm, the Sensex traded down 300 points or 0.81 per cent at 36,670 while the Nifty was at 10,981, down 88 points from the previous close.
- Other than Tata Motors, which plunged as much as 29 per cent, a day after it reported its biggest quarterly loss ever; other top laggards on the 50-scrip index were Grasim Industries, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Vedanta, Eicher Motors and JSW Steel, trading between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent lower.
- Tata Motors on Thursday posted its biggest quarterly loss, hurt by an impairment charge worth Rs 27,838 crore for its British luxury car business Jaguar Land Rover. Its net loss stood at Rs 26,993 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2018.
- Gauge of PSU banks - Nifty PSU Bank Index fell nearly 2 per cent led by losses in Union Bank of India, Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, Punjab National Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce.
- Jet Airways shares fell as much as 2.37 per cent, after the airline said four of its aircraft were grounded "due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under lease agreements".
- The Reserve Bank of India surprised the financial markets on Thursday by reducing the key interest rate by 0.25 per cent. The central bank also lowered its retail inflation forecast to 2.8 per cent for the last quarter of the current fiscal year on account of favourable factors including benign monsoon.
- Meanwhile, the rupee appreciated by 13 paise against the dollar to 71.32 in early trade. The surprise rate cut by the RBI, weakness in the US dollar against peers overseas and easing of crude oil prices supported the rupee, news agency Press Trust of India quoted traders as saying.
- Asian stocks lost ground on Friday as investors worried about a broadening global economic slowdown, with sentiment not helped by the absence of any positive signs for a resolution in the U.S.-China trade row.
- Safe-haven government bonds benefited in the face of growing anxiety over the global outlook, with German and Japanese debt yields falling to their lowest in over two years.
- Spreadbetters expected European stocks to open mixed, with Britain's FTSE inching up 0.1 percent, Germany's DAX retreating 0.05 percent and France's CAC starting flat.
(With agency inputs)