Sensex falls for sixth day; banks, Cipla decline

Moneycontrol Bureau

The Sensex fell on Thursday, to its lowest close in one-and-a-half months, led by a decline in banking stocks, after government estimates showed India's FY13 growth could be worse than expected, while Cipla fell after its October-December net profit missed estimates.

The Sensex provisionally fell 0.26 percent, while the Nifty ended down 0.31 percent.

Pharma major Cipla ended trade down 2.61 percent after dismal earnings led to a string of downgrades . CLSA has downgraded the stock to an "underperform" with target of Rs 415. The management has guided for growth rate to slow down as lexapro supplies dry up.

PSU major NTPC is down 2.72 percent. The USD 2.1 billion share auction in state-run power utility got fully covered on Thursday, provisional data from the Bombay Stock Exchange showed.

By 3:05 pm, the single-day auction had received bids for 840.65 million shares at an indicative weighted average price of Rs 145.46 per share.

IT stocks have had a good run today with TCS and Mahindra Satyam rising over 1 percent; Infosys moved up half a percent.

In the banking space, the HDFC duo were up but SBI, ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda fell 1-3.24 percent. Karnataka Bank fell 4.3 percent. Manappuram Finance was the noticiable loser in the non-banking space; the stock fell more than 10 percent.