The sell off continues towards the end

Thu, 26 Mar 03:30 pm

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

   Closing   

Indian markets fell over 1% as the sell-off Indian markets extended their sell-off as the BSE Sensex cracked over 600 points while NSE-Nifty tumbled nearly 200 points. Barring capital goods, almost all the sectoral indices have faced heavy selling pressure. Banks, IT and automobile stocks have fallen 2.5%, 1.5% and 1%, respectively. Capital goods sector has managed gains of about 0.3%. BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap have relatively outperformed as they have fallen by 0.6% and 0.7% respectively.

Commodities have gained investor attention as market is witnessing a sell-off. The safe haven, gold has increased above 1.5% as investors look towards gold to hedge their losses from equities. Per 10 grams, gold prices are available at Rs 26,880 levels while on the other hands, Silver prices have jumped over 2%. Silver, per kilogram is available at, Rs 38,925, up Rs 727. Crude oil prices have spiked over 5% owing to the mess in Yemen. Per barrel, crude oil is available at Rs 3,259. On the currency front, U.S Dollar has increased about 0.6% while Euro and Great British Pound have increased about 1% owing to the Yemen woes. Indian Rupee against the U.S. Dollar stands at Rs 62.72. Against Euro and British Pound, Indian Rupee stands at Rs 69.23 and Rs 93.92.

Infrastructure companies too fell as a prey to the sell-off in broader markets. However, HCC is trading with modest gains of 0.33%. National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) provided an arbitrary award to HCC which amounted to about Rs 2.17 bn. Of the total amount, Rs 1.35 bn is the principal while the balance is the interest component. This award was given by NHAI after it received instructions from the arbitrary panel. The award was given because HCC approached the panel as it could not complete the Lucknow-Muzaffapur package IV project. It also included constructing highway between Gorakhpur and Ayodhya. The land which is required for construction was not provided to them in a timely fashion.

Despite such a huge sell-off, telecom companies continued to gain in a hope that they would be successful in buying licenses for twenty years. Major companies running up for the licenses are Vodafone, Airtel and Idea. According to a leading financial, 800 mhz and 900 mhz received better than expected response with huge bidding in that band. The companies expect to mint revenues through voice revenues in the next fiscal. Shares of Airtel and Idea remained strong with gains of over 2% each.