Sensex breaks 25000, sinks 400 pts; Lupin, Biocon outperform

Moneycontrol Bureau1:50 pm Oil falls: Oil prices extended losses from the previous two sessions on weakening demand for gasoline and on concerns the global crude glut could persist for some time.

Front month US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were trading at USD 35.31 per barrel, down 39 cents from their last settlement. International Brent futures were down 33 cents at USD 37.36 a barrel. 1:45 pm Europe under pressure: European markets were trading sharply lower today, as oil price volatility continued to weigh on markets worldwide and investors digested a raft of new data from the euro zone.

London's FTSE 100 was some 1 percent lower, while the French CAC slipped 1.9 percent and Germany's DAX tumbled some 2 percent.1:40 pm More rate cut likely?: Following the exemplary fiscal rectitude displayed by the government in its FY17 Budget, RBI’s 25 bps cut in the repo rate and the shift in stance towards neutral money market liquidity conditions is a testament of synchronous policy support, says Rana Kapoor, MD and CEO, Yes Bank.With global economic activity remaining subdued and domestic disinflation becoming entrenched amid low capacity utilization, he expects further 125 bps monetary easing in the next 12-months.1:35 pm Call drop case: In a follow-up to the call drop case, Attorney General today said it will conduct a meeting with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) officials and Telecom Ministry members. The meeting is scheduled for April 9 and April 10. Supreme Court, in its last meet, had questioned TRAI over amending the call drop mechanism as the latter, in a technical paper, had said that all call drops cannot be attributed to telecom companies. The possible solution over call drops might be taken post this meeting.1:25 pm Buzzing: Shares of oil marketing companies rose by up to 3 percent today after petrol price was hiked by Rs 2.19 a litre and diesel by 98 paise per litre on Monday.  Petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 61.87 per litre as against Rs 59.68 currently, said Indian Oil Corporation, the nation's biggest fuel retailer.

Similarly, a litre of diesel will cost Rs 49.31 compared with Rs 48.33 at present. State-owned fuel retailers IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) revise rates of the fuel on 1st and 16th of every month based on the average oil price and the foreign exchange rate in the preceding fortnight.1:20 pm Car, home loans to be cheap: Home, auto and other loans are set to become cheaper with RBI today reducing the short-term lending rate by 0.25 percent to over 5-year low of 6.5 percent, taking the total cut to 1.5 percent since January last year.

Unveiling the first bi-monthly monetary policy for the current fiscal, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said banks have already cut interest rates by 0.25-0.5 percent and after today's rate cut borrowings will become cheaper further.

"Borrowing is cheaper...and will continue to do so," the Governor said, adding that the introduction of marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) system will improve monetary policy transmission.

1:10 pm Environmental nod: State-owned ONGC has received green nod for its Rs 350-crore project of drilling 22 exploratory wells in NELP-9 blocks located at Banaskantha, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad districts of Gujarat.

According to the proposal, wells would be drilled in blocks CB-CNN-2010/1, 6 and 9, which were awarded to ONGC way back in March 2012 through the NELP-9 bidding process.

The petroleum exploratory licence to start the activities as per the production sharing contract (PSC) was granted in February 2013. The initial contract period is seven years.

"Based on the views of the expert appraisal committee (EAC), the Union environment ministry has given environmental clearance to the ONGC drilling project in Gujarat subject to strict compliance of specific and general conditions," a senior government official said.Don't miss - Govt keen on doing reforms, improving biz climate: Panagariya1:00 pm Market Check

Equity benchmarks plunged further, especially after the Reserve Bank of India matched economists' expectations by cutting repo rate by 25 basis points. PSU Bank Nifty was the biggest loser among sectoral indices, down 3.5 percent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 405.70 points or 1.60 percent to 24993.95 and 50-share NSE Nifty tanked 119.45 points or 1.54 percent to 7639.35. More than two shares declined for every share advancing on BSE.

Lupin shares gained more than 1 percent intraday after its US subsidiary, Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc has launched the first product from its GAVIS pipeline, Zolpidem Sublingual tablets 1.75 mg & 3.5 mg in the US. The drug is indicated for use as needed for the treatment of insomnia when a middle-of-the-night awakening is followed by difficulty returning to sleep.

Biocon rallied 7 percent as Morgan Stanley has upgraded its rating on the stock to overweight from underweight and raised target price to Rs 622 (from Rs 459 earlier), saying 2016 could be a turning point for the biopharmaceutical company. The brokerage sees Biocon as a strong re-rating story given that markets have hardly priced in its biosimilar pipeline.