Nifty ends at 2-month low, drops 1%; rate sensitives drag

Indian shares closed at two-month low on Friday due to build up of short positions in rate sensitives in late trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty broke the range of 5600-5750, which has been seen since September, on the lower end. The index fell 56.95 points or 1.01 percent to close at 5,574.05.

Meanwhile, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 162 points to 18,309.37 following weak global cues and ahead of winter parliament session that will begin on November 22.

According to Dipan Mehta, Member of BSE & NSE, today’s fall is attributed to weak global markets and fears of likely fresh set of uncertainty in winter parliament session.

Technically, he feels the markets have certainly become weak. “One should expect some amount of selling and maybe the markets to trade 3-4 percent lower,” he adds.

The Indian rupee too was under pressure, losing 41 paise to 55.11 against the US dollar and 35 paise to 70.20 against the Euro.

The BSE Realty index hit very hard, falling 3.36 percent followed by Bank, Auto, Capital Goods, FMCG and Power indices that slipped 1-1.6 percent.

Real estate firm DLF plummeted 2.6 percent while HDIL, DB Realty, Indiabulls Real and Unitech were down 4-6 percent.

Country’s largest lender State Bank of India dropped 2.13 percent while its rival ICICI Bank tanked 2.65 percent.

Housing finance company HDFC, private oil & gas producer Reliance Industries and engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro went down 1-1.8 percent.

Commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors tumbled 2.6 percent and FMCG major Hindustan Unilever was down 2.3 percent.

Cigarette major ITC and software services exporter TCS were down 0.7 percent each.

Shares of Maruti, BHEL, Tata Steel, GAIL, Hindalco and Sterlite tumbled 1.5-2 percent.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel rallied 3.5 percent, extending gains for the second consecutive session after second generation spectrum auction. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has upgraded the stock to buy from neutral rating.

Software services exporter Infosys and drug producer Dr Reddy’s Labs gained 2 percent.

Declining shares outnumbered advancing by 1728 to 1063 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

On the global front, European markets were down 0.3-0.6 percent on continued uncertainties over Greece.

Asian markets closed mixed. Shanghai fell 0.77 percent while Hang Seng gained 0.24 percent. Nikkei rallied 2.2 percent on hopes of monetary easing.