Sensex falls 100 pts; Bankex down 1%, rupee touches 51/USD

The BSE Sensex continued to trade lower due to consistent fall in banks, technology and metals stocks. The BSE Bankex fell more than 100 points or 1% on fears that the rate hike may not be possible in April as the government is set to raise 65% of its borrowing in first half of FY13. The Indian rupee retreated today, which was down by 31 paise to 51 a dollar.

The BSE Sensex was down 106 points to 17,151.61 and the NSE benchmark fell 34 points to 5,209.50.

Country's largest lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank fell over 1% while its rival HDFC Bank and Housing finance company HDFC too were down 1%.

There is lack of liquidity in the bond market, so bond yields are heading higher in anticipation of delay by RBI in announcing support to the borrowing plan, Nilesh Shah of Axis Direct told CNBC-TV18. The 10-year benchmark bond yields spiked 8 basis points to 8.59%.

In between April and September, 2012, the government will sell bonds worth Rs 3.70 lakh crore (gross) out of its budgeted target of Rs 5.69 lakh crore for the full year.

Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, India's top software services exporters dropped 0.7-1%.

Among metals, Sterlite Industries, Hindalco and Jindal Steel were down 1.5-2.7%. Index heavyweight and oil & gas producer ONGC was down 1% while rival Reliance Industries gained 0.2%.

Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto and Hero Motocorp went down 0.5-1.5% whereas M&M rose 0.5%.

However, capital goods majors Larsen & Toubro and BHEL climbed 0.8%.

Declining shares outnumbered advancing by 771 to 463 on the National Stock Exchange.