Sensex falls 245 pts, Nifty ends at 8750; auto, banks drag

03:10pm Info Edge rallies: Info Edge has corrected in the past few months. UBS thinks its risk-reward profile is attractive at the current level.

The brokerage upgraded the stock from neutral to buy and raised its price target from Rs 950 to Rs 1,000.

Info Edge is a major company in the online classifieds market. Naukri, India's No 1 job portal, remains its key revenue and earnings source. The company has been investing aggressively in 99acres, given big upside potential in online real estate classifieds. Zomato, its food portal, is also doing well.

Amid increasing competition in the online food discovery and ordering segment in India, Zomato is set to launch its food ordering application for restaurants in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, as per media articles.

UBS said this is a positive for Info Edge, as it indicates a robust monetisation strategy on top of strong business growth. It expects proceeds from the recent round of capital-raising to fund the required expenditure.

03:00pm Market Update: The market extended losses in late trade with the Nifty breaking 8750 level, dragged by technology, private banks, capital goods, pharma and auto stocks.

The Sensex is down 236.93 points or 0.82 percent at 28807.51, and the Nifty down 80.25 points or 0.91 percent at 8753.75. About 1398 shares have advanced, 1409 shares declined, and 155 shares are unchanged on the BSE. 

02:45pm Oil companies in focus: Sources told CNBC-TV18 that the government has paid Rs 5,300 crore to oil companies as subsidy for the January-March quarter of financial year 2014-15.

The government exempted upstream companies from sharing Q4 under-recovery burden and will also exempt upstream oil companies from any burden sharing for LPG under direct benefit transfer for FY16, said sources.

However, CNBC-TV18 also learnt that upstream companies may have to share only kerosene under-recovery burden in FY16.

According to sources, LPG subsidy for FY16 is likely to be Rs 22,000 crore and the government does not expect too much burden on kerosene under-recovery in FY16.

Shares of ONGC gained 3.5 percent and Oil India rallied nearly 7 percent.

02:20pm Europe Update: European shares hit a 14-year high today before a meeting at which the European Central Bank is expected to affirm its loose policy stance, as weak data from China raised prospects of monetary easing there too.

Financial markets remain driven by policy action from the world's major central banks, with Tuesday's softer US retail sales supporting the view that the Federal Reserve will not rush to raise interest rates in June.

The ECB is almost certain to keep rates unchanged at record lows at its meeting later in the day, and also tipped to quash talk it might scale down sooner than planned the 1 trillion euro quantitative easing scheme it launched last month.

A banking source told Reuters on Tuesday the ECB raised the cap on emergency liquidity assistance that Greek banks can draw from the country's central bank, taking some of the heat off Athens.

Data earlier in the day showed growth in China's economy slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent in the first quarter. That was better than many feared after a woeful trade performance in March.

But both retail sales and industrial output missed forecasts, with the latter expanding at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis in 2008, intensifying Beijing's struggle to find the right policy mix to shore up activity.

02:00pm Market Check

The market is flat, as the Sensex is down 8.44 points at 29036.00. The Nifty is down 3.65 points at 8830.35. About 1561 shares have advanced, 1173 shares declined and 149 shares are unchanged.

Sesa Sterlite, SBI, Tata Power, ITC and Maruti Suzuki are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are M&M, BHEL, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel.

India needs to take many policy measures over a period of time, including moving towards full capital account convertibility, to become a leading global economy, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha has said.

"There are many policy measures and many things that we have to do over a period of time, if indeed India has to become a leading global economy... We have to make it possible for our capital markets to be broader, deeper and for that to happen, capital account convertibility also becomes important," Sinha told reporters.

Crude oil prices climbed in Asia for a fifth-straight trading day today following forecasts that US shale production could decline and help ease a global supply glut, analysts said.

The US Energy Information Administration said on Monday that output from the country’s seven shale regions, which has driven production to a record high, looked set to fall by 57,000 barrels per day in May.

Analysts said a decline should help ease the global crude oversupply, which led to a collapse in prices of more than 50 percent between June and January.