Sensex falls 150 pts, Nifty breaks 8900; Cairn slips 3%

12:20pm Spectrum Auction: The spectrum auction resumed today with seven rounds of bidding for all fours bands by telecom operators in first few hours, after bids worth over Rs 60,000 crore on first day yesterday.

"Seven rounds have been completed as of now with bidding in all the four bands," a source said. The biggest ever spectrum auction of 2G and 3G airwaves began on Wednesday on a high note with operators making bids worth an estimated Rs 60,000 crore after six rounds of bidding in all the four bands.

The government is expecting about Rs 1 lakh crore from the auction. The value of spectrum put on sale is Rs 82,000 crore at the base price.

Asian brokerage firm CLSA in a report said that at the end of day one, the spectrum in 900 MHz is already 32 percent above the reserve price and there was excess demand in 5 out of 17 circles, reports PTI.

12:00pm Market Check

The market continued to consolidate after yesterday's losses with the Nifty hovering around 8,900 level. Capital goods, metals, technology and select banks remained under pressure while FMCG, healthcare and HDFC group stocks provided support.

The Sensex fell 44.36 points to 29336.37 and the Nifty declined 23.30 points to 8899.35. However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.4 percent each.

Pipavav Defence lost 10 percent after Anil Ambani's Reliance Infrastructure announced an open offer for the company which is at a 15 percent discount to yesterday's closing price. Reliance Defence announced acquisition of Pipavav in an all-cash deal last evening.

Cairn India is among the top losers on Nifty, down 3 percent after it cut its capex guidance for FY16 by 60 percent to USD 500 million. The oil major also reduced its production guidance of 7-10 percent CAGR over FY14-17.

United Spirits gained 2 percent. Morgan Stanley says the long-term franchise for the company is 'solid'. It kept a target of Rs 4,850 on the stock. Morgan Stanley forecasts a 650 basis points of gross margin expansion for the domestic business over the next three years.

It's day 2 of the second phase of the coal auctions. The 2 coal blocks up for grabs today are Mandakini coal block in Odisha and the Meral block in Jharkhand.

Asian indices declined with the Shanghai market seeing a cut of almost 1.5 percent after China lowered its growth target to 7 percent for 2015, the lowest target in 11 years (lower than the 7.5 percent figure last year).