Benchmarks tumble further on persistent somberness

Indian bourses, which belled the day on a dreary note, are marching lower as the day progressed. The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty are trading around their low point of the day. The local equity markets are tottering under intense selling pressure as a rally in crude oil prices and weak Asian markets on the back of worsening political situation in the Middle-East, weighed heavily on the investor sentiment. A counter-offensive by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi against rebels deepened concerns that a civil war is brewing in Africa's largest holder of oil reserves. While, the Asian markets were trading in the mixed range, US index futures were witnessing down-tick in screen trade reflecting the somberness in global investor sentiment. Back home, all the sectoral indices are trading in the red with deep cuts. Capital goods, realty, auto, banking and consumer durables segments witnessed maximum selling pressure. Index heavyweights like RIL, Infosys, ICICI Bank, HUL, ITC and L&T are trading at their day's lowest level, dragging the markets further southwards. Meanwhile, political uncertainty due to the standoff in seat sharing talks between UPA allies Congress and the DMK, is also weighing on sentiments of the investors. Midcap and smallcap stocks are also under severe pressure, and mirroring their fall, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices have now lost around 1.80% and 1.83%, respectively. The market breadth on the BSE, however, remained in favour of declines; there were 1920 shares on the losing side against 726 shares on the gaining side while 84 shares were unchanged.

The BSE Sensex plummeted 369.21 points or 2% at 18,117.24. The index touched a high and a low of 18,361.65 and 18,097.44, respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices sank 1.80% and 1.83%, respectively.

All the sectoral indices were trading in the red with deep cuts. Capital Goods (CG) down 2.76%, Realty down 2.75%, Auto down 2.52%, Bankex down 2.34% and Consumer Durables (CD) down 2.28% were the major losers in BSE sectoral space.

Meanwhile, ITC is looking for over 30% increase in the area covered under its social forestry programme by 2016 and touch a total of 1.50 lakh hectares. Presently, under its social and farm forestry programme, the company covers 1.15 lakh hectares, with 467 million saplings planted, providing over 50 million man-days of employment. It is also expanding its pulpwood plantation by at least 10,000 hectares a year.

Meanwhile, the company, from its sustained research and community engagements, has supported millions of sustainable livelihoods and the creation of a large green cover that has built meaningful value for the society and the nation.

ITC is also emphasizing on its watershed development programmes and is aiming to cover over 1 lakh hectares in the by 2016. Presently, ITC's watershed development programme covers 56,000 hectares. It has also created around 3,000 water harvesting structures.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Rel Infra up 9.18%, ITC up 2.21%, JP Associates up 2.07%, Hero Honda up 1.82% and Tata Motors up 1.36%.

The top losers on the Sensex were Tata Motors down 3.97%, JP Associates down 3.75%, L&T down 3.56%, RCom down 3.32% and BHEL down 3.12%; while Cipla up 0.12% was the only gainer on the index.

India has successfully tested an indigenously developed ballistic missile interception system by shooting down an incoming ballistic missile - a Prithvi variant - in Orissa. The system successfully destroyed an "attacker" ballistic missile with an interceptor missile, over the Bay of Bengal off Orissa coast. With this, India has joined the likes of US, Russia and Israel in an elite group of countries to have accomplished the mission.

DRDO scientists launched a target "attacker" missile from launch pad P-3 from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur on-Sea in Balasore district, about 70 km from Wheeler Island at an altitude of 16 km over the Bay of Bengal. This is the DRDO's sixth interceptor mission, and five have been successful including a hat-trick in the first three.

The interceptor has its own mobile launcher, secure data link for interception, independent tracking and homing capabilities, as well as, sophisticated radars. The success of the interceptor missile mission demonstrates the country's capability to neutralize adversarial satellites in space.

The S&P CNX Nifty plunged 116.50 points or 2.10% to 5422.25. The index touched a high and a low of 5491.25 and 5419.35, respectively. 

The top losers of the index were Tata Motors down 4.31%, Sun Pharma down 4.27%, Axis Bank down 4.02%, JP Associates down 3.81% and IDFC down 3.79%.

On the other hand, Cairn India up 1.45%, RPower up 0.29%, Cipla up 0.18% and Siemens up 0.09% were the only gainers on the index.

Rest of the Asian markets were trading in the mixed range; Hang Seng declined 0.14%, KLSE Composite trimmed 0.50%, Nikkei 225 tanked 1.76%, Seoul Composite plummeted 1.22% and Taiwan Weighted dropped 0.80%.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite increased 1.82%, Jakarta Composite added 0.11% and Straits Times advanced 0.08%.

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