Markets open in the red

Tue, 12 May 09:30 am

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The Indian Indices have started the day on a negative note. The Sensex has slipped over 300 points tracking the dull trend seen in the other Asian and global markets . The Sensex is down 346 points (down 1.3%) and the NSE-Nifty is down 116 points (down 1.4%) at 8,208. BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap have also opened in the red with both the indices down by 1%. All the sectoral indices have opened in the red with banking and capital goods bearing majority of the brunt.

Globally, the US markets ended lower led by Greece's financial woes, slowing growth in China as well as gains in bond yields. Meanwhile, investors awaited the release of the federal budget in Sydney.

The major Asian markets too are trading lower following a lower finish on Wall Street. Japan's Nikkei 225 underperformed in early trade, with auto sector leading the fall. The Indian rupee slipped in the early trade. It has opened lower by 26 paise at 64.11 per dollar versus 63.85 Monday.

According to a leading financial daily, Engineering major Larsen & Toubro has signed a technology transfer agreement with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries to build carriers for liquefied natural gas (LNG) at its shipyard at Kattupalli, near Chennai. While L&T aims to bag order from state-run GAIL which is likely to re-launch tender for nine LNG carriers with this tie-up, the company hopes to get more orders in India and abroad. The tie-up with Hyundai will help L&T improve utilization of its shipyard at Kattupalli, which is housed under subsidiary L&T Shipbuilding. L&T set up the Rs 47 bn shipyard-cum-port complex at Kattupalli to manufacture warships, large commercial vessels and to augment the existing capacity at Hazira for submarines. The company hopes to make it the next major international destination after Colombo and Singapore ship repairs in the region.

Energy stocks have opened deep in the red with HPCL and Chennai Petroleum being the leading losers. According to a leading financial daily, Oil explorer Cairn India stated that its oilfields in offshore Senegal could hold more than a billion barrels of oil and the company and its partners plan to drill up to six new wells over three years. Reportedly, Cairn Energy and its joint venture partners will start drilling work in a new area around its existing SNE-1 discovery well in the fourth quarter of this year. Cairn estimates that the existing two discoveries and the currently identified prospects and leads have an estimated mean risked resource base of more than a billion barrels.