Markets slip into red; PSU oil & gas stocks decline

The domestic equity markets have lost their momentum completely in the late morning trade and both the benchmark indices have slipped further into red, trading down by over half a percentage point. The global cues however remains mixed as some of the Asian indices were trading lower while the US future indices too were showing downtick in screen trade. Back home, the main jitter came to the markets with a news that government is planning to regulate the petrol prices again, which had been de-regulated last year. The Ministry has termed the regular petrol price hike as unsustainable after the global crude oil prices reached to their highest level since 2008, touching $116 per barrel. The PSU oil companies that were slightly sensing a sign of relief after the international crude prices started coming down, have once again turned into somber mood and have pulled the oil & gas index as the laggard of the trade, the other heavy weight of the index Reliance Industries too was pulling the markets down after market regulator Sebi started adjudication proceedings in a case of an alleged takeover code violation by the company. However, the rate sensitives' realty and auto along with consumer durables were resisting the slide. Also the broader indices are trying to keep the breadth in positive terrain for the markets.

The market breadth on the BSE, however, remained in favour of advances; there were 1392 shares on the gaining side against 1064 shares on the losing side while 111 shares were unchanged.

The BSE Sensex dropped 110.99 points or 0.60% at 18,328.66. It touched a high of 18,583.30 and a low of 18,328.66 respectively.

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices gained 0.28% and 0.59% respectively.

In the BSE sectoral space, Oil & Gas down 1.45%, Healthcare (HC) down 0.92%, Information Technology (IT) down 0.81%, TECk down 0.66% and Metal down 0.47% were the top losers; while, Consumer Durables up 0.83%, Realty up 0.52% and Auto up 0.25% were the only gainers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto up 1.24%, DLF up 1.10%, Maruti Suzuki up 0.87%, Hero Honda up 0.76% and ICICI Bank up 0.51%.

On the other hand, RIL down 1.39%, Jindal Steel down 1.32%, ONGC down 1.20%, Infosys down 1.17% and Cipla down 1.15% were the major losers on the index

Meanwhile, India's leading telecommunications company, Bharti Airtel has added about 6 lakh 3G subscribers, which offer higher average revenues, since the launch of the next generation telephony service in January-end. 3G offers better bandwidth that allows heavy data transfer. Mobile firms have paid heavy fees in an auction to secure the spectrum for rollout of the services.

Recently, the company had unveiled its 3G services in Mumbai. Mumbai is the 11th city where Airtel launched its services and the company is targeting a rollout in 40 cities across 13 telecom circles where it has secured a 3G license by March-end. For the Mumbai circle, the company has invested in erecting 1,300 3G sites or towers which are over and above 3,100 2G sites it has.

The company already launched 3G services in Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal, Udupi, Jaipur and Delhi NCR. It will be launching its 3G services in all 13 circles where it has obtained licenses by March 2011.

The S&P CNX Nifty declined 36.30 points or 0.66% at 5484.50. The index touched high of 5563.30 and a low of 5478.20 respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Kotak Bank up 1.74%, SAIL up 1.49%, Rel Capital up 1.39%, DLF up 1.01% and Hero Honda up 0.85%.

On the other hand, Sun Pharma down 2.59%, BPCL down 2.58%, Cairn India down 2.44%, ONGC down 1.93% and RIL down 1.51% were the major losers on the index

The other Asian markets with an exception of Straits Times, which was down by 0.31% were trading mostly in the green; Shanghai Composite gained 0.11%, Hang Seng surged 0.57%, Jakarta Composite added 0.04%, KLSE Composite rose 0.42%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.62%, Seoul Composite added 0.16% and Taiwan Weighted grew 0.03%.

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