Sensex falls over 150 pts, Nifty below 6300; IT, banks weak

Moneycontrol Bureau
Live Market Commentary

9:50 am Market check: The Sensex is down 192.99 points at 21046.37, and the Nifty down 53.40 points at 6263.95. About 434 shares have advanced, 673 shares declined, and 57 shares are unchanged.

ITC, Dr Reddy's Labs, SBI, GAIL fall around 2 percent each. Reliance, HDFC twins, Coal India and Tata Motors are gainers in the Sensex.
9:30 am Good news: Goldman Sachs has upgraded its India rating to equal-weight from earlier underweight citing improving macro and micro cues. The investment banking firm also raised its Nifty target to 6900.

Goldman's top picks include HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, RIL, BPCL, Coal India, Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank and select cement and auto stocks. Goldman Sachs also finds some of the midcap infra stocks like Adani Port, Adani Power, NHPC, Grasim Ind and Container Corp of India attractive at current valuations.

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After a blockbuster rally last week, trading is tepid today. The Nifty has slipped below 6300, down 28.55 points at 6288.80. The Sensex is down 106.42 points at 21132.94. About 206 shares have advanced, 235 shares declined, and 27 shares are unchanged.

Technology and banking stocks are under selling pressure. HDFC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Axis Bank and Bank of Baroda are big banking laggards. Wipro is down over 1 percent. Tata Powers, Sesa Sterlite, Tata Motors and GAIL are major losers in the Sensex.

On the gaining side are Jindal Steel, HDFC Bank and Tata Steel.

The Indian rupee slipped in early trade against the dollar. The Indian rupee opened at 61.94 per dollar versus 61.74 on Friday.

Pramit Brahmbhatt, Alpari India said, "Rupee is expected to be rangebound with a slight positive bias. However strong dollar demand from importers and strong dollar in the international market will keep the currency under pressure.

The range for the day is seen between 61.20-62.20/USD."

On Monday, in the US, markets closed with slight gains after hovering around the flatline for most of the session as investors seemed reluctant to jump in following a four-week rally and amid uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve would start paring back its stimulus. Its August factory orders slipped 0.1 percent following a 2.4 percent drop in July orders, while September factory orders climbed 1.7 percent, in line with estimates

In Asia, Kospi fell to a three-week low. Japanese markets were shut on Monday for a public holiday. Nissan Motor tumbled 9 percent after cutting its full-year net profit forecast on Friday due to costly recalls. The carmaker is scheduled to report quarterly earnings after Tuesday's market close. Bank of Japan chief Kuroda is due to deliver a speech in Osaka.

In the currency space, the euro clings onto modest gains having bounced off a seven-week low on the back of improving Eurozone data, but talk of a rate cut this week should curb demand for the common currency. The dollar index held above 80 levels.

In commodities, crude futures seesawed on Monday in choppy trading, hitting a four-month low on weaker than expected US economic data and expectations of another build in US oil inventories.

Gold traded modestly higher, lifted by a dollar drop and comments by a senior Fed official that the US central bank should keep up its monetary stimulus.