Nifty drops below 5250; ICICI, HDFC Bank down but SBI gains

The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex remained lower by more than 1%, though it showed somewhat recovery from day's low. Infosys' first quarter numbers and FY13 guidance dampened the mood of investors today.

Software services exporter crashed more than 8% as the company's profit for the quarter ended June 2012 declined by 1.16% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 2,289 crore while analysts on average had expected around Rs 2,448 crore. Even the guidance of at least 5% growth in revenues for FY13 (in dollar terms) to USD 7.343 billion was quite bad as analysts had expected around 6-8% growth and company itself had forecasted around 8-10%.

Its rival TCS fell just 1.5% ahead of numbers today after market hours and Wipro lost 3.5%.

The BSE benchmark dropped 234.5 points or 1.34% to 17,254.65, but the losses trimmed by European markets helped the Indian benchmark recover from day's low of 18,171. Meanwhile, the NSE benchmark lost 65.75 points to 5,240.55.

Country's largest private sector lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were down more than 1% whereas their rival State Bank of India outperformed, rising 0.5%.

All eyes are now on the May inflation data expected on July 16, as it is crucial to the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy review. Economists feel that the central bank is unlikely to move key rates in its monetary policy review on July 31 even though industrial product output grew marginally higher at 2.4% in May from the month ago period.

Top telecom operator Bharti Airtel plunged 3%. Engineering and construction major by sales Larsen & Toubro and top commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors dropped 1.4% and 1.76%, respectively.

Reliance Industries, India's most valued stock was down 0.7% while state-owned oil & gas producer ONGC rose 1%.

Gas transportation services provider GAIL too gained 1%. HUL, Hero Motocorp and Cipla too were on buyers' radar, rising 0.4%.

On the global front, Britain's FTSE, Germany's DAX and France's CAC were down 0.4-1%.