Nifty remains below 5400 again; oil & gas, tech, autos drag

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Indian equity benchmarks closed lower for third consecutive session on Friday, with falling about 2% for the week and more than half a percent in today's trade. Oil & gas, technology, auto and select metal companies' shares dragged down the market while buying in banking, power and telecom stocks has limited the downside.

Benchmarks stayed below their psychologically important levels for another session - the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 30.35 points, to close at 5,366.40 and the 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 115.35 points, to end at 17,870.53. Shorts build up in heavyweights could be the reason behind today's downtrend.

According to Sridhar Sivaram, ED at Morgan Stanley Investment Managers, the market is already in consolidation phase. He sees it trading in a tight range around 18,000 levels for the next three to six month as he doesn't see improvement in the macro front till then. "Lack of reforms is a worry for the market. And, on back of that we may end the year flat."

However, Ramesh Damani, member of BSE sees no 'sharp fall' in the Indian markets. "The Market has already factored in the Greek default. There are no real signs of speculative froth in Indian markets," says Damani. Defying to side with the collapse sentiment, Damani says, "I don't see the Nifty going towards 4,800 levels."

European markets recovered after cabinet reshuffle in Greece. Government appointed Evangelos Venizelos as a finance minister, replacing George Papaconstantinou, who is now environment minister in the same cabinet.

Athex Composite gained 2%. France' CAC and Germany's DAX were up 0.5% each while FTSE was flat. Dow Jones and Nasdaq futures too went up 0.5% each.

Reliance Industries touched new 52-week low of Rs 865.25 today, with falling 2.2% to close at Rs 868.40. ONGC and Cairn India too were down over 1% and 2%, respectively. Fall in crude prices could be dragged down stock prices. Brent crude was trading below USD 112 a barrel, down over 2%.

TCS was the leading dragger for another day, with losing more than 3.5%. Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech were down 1-2%. Other heavyweights like ITC and HDFC fell 1-1.5%.

Auto stocks too were on sellers' radar. Maruti Suzuki slipped over 2% as CLSA has downgraded Maruti to underperform from outperform and cut target to Rs 1265 from Rs 1430. M&M fell 2% as well. Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Hero Honda closed marginally down.

Hindalco and Sesa Goa from metal space declined 2-3%.

However, telecom stocks were in the limelight after long time. Bharti Airtel surged 3% and Reliance Communications fell 1.5%.

Tata Steel rallied 3.6% after company sold its stake in Riversdale for USD 1.11 billion to Rio Tinto.

SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and PNB from banking space closed with moderate gains.

NTPC, Power Grid, Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Power from power pack went up 0.6-1%.

Midcaps

Jyothy Labs, Shriram City, Godrej Industries, eClerx Services and Parsvnath gained 2.5-8% while GTL tumbled 16.5%. GTL Infra, TTK Prestige, Cox & Kings and Prism Cement lost 5-7%.

Declines outnumbered advances today - about 1002 shares gained as against 1958 shares declined.