Stormy Parliament session, global cues drag Sensex 159 pts

Moneycontrol Bureau

The market fell for third consecutive session on Monday with the Nifty breaking 7850 level intraday, reacting to weak global cues and stormy Parliament session. Oil, auto, metals, pharma and select banking & financials weighed down.

The market was also volatile ahead of expiry of April Nifty derivative contracts due on Thursday. The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 159.21 points or 0.62 percent to 25678.93 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 44.25 points or 0.56 percent to 7855.05.

Experts expect the consolidation with a negative bias to continue (amid March quarter earnings season) in near term.

Andrew Holland of Ambit Investment Advisors says although he is not aggressively betting on markets falling, cues from Japan and the US will be closely watched this week.

Holland's fear is that liquidity-driven markets could suddenly get a nasty shock. A chief source of worry for Holland is whether we will be revisiting the scare seen in February of a global recession.

The broader markets outperformed benchmarks as the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were down only 0.14 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively. The market breadth remained weak as about 1534 shares declined against 1079 advancing shares on Bombay Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the new session of Parliament has begun on a stormy note. The Opposition targeted the government on the Uttarakhand political crisis but the government refused to debate the issue.

Globally European stocks traded lower following shaky investor sentiment in Asia at the start of a week in which central banks are the focus. France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were down 0.3-0.5 percent (at 16 hours IST). In Asia, Nikkei and Hang Seng lost 0.76 percent each.

The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand are scheduled to meet this week, leaving markets waiting to see if the central banks will announce monetary policy or forward guidance changes.

Back home, Reliance Industries, HDFC, ITC, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, SBI, ONGC and Hindalco Industries declined 1-3 percent while TCS, ICICI Bank, Infosys and HUL gained 0.3-1.3 percent.

Bharti Airtel outperformed, rising 1.6 percent as the board of directors will consider buyback on April 27.

Cairn India lost 4 percent after its Q4 consolidated net loss widened to Rs 10,948 crore from Rs 240.8 crore in year-ago period.

Filatex India surged 20 percent after strong earnings in Q4. Profit shot up 365.8 percent year-on-year to Rs 13.6 crore during the quarter.