Gaddafi strikes again, Nifty slips below 5500

Indian equity benchmarks retreated on the back of weak global cues on Thursday, reacting to further heightened tension in the Middle East and North Africa - especially in Libya, which pushed oil prices higher yesterday. The Nifty shut shop a tad below the 5500 level after seeing rangebound trade between 5470-5495 on the downside with low volumes today. The indices had gained in the previous two sessions.

Devina Mehra of First Global feels that crude definitely remains a concern, but more on the macro front than on direct corporate earnings.

"Crude will impact earnings to an extent. More than crude, the interest rates strengthening will impact the bottomline below the EBITDA level. Crude is a concern not just directly for its impact on corporate earnings but because of its impact on the Indian macro story, which is really the story of twin deficits. While the fiscal deficit is relatively more manageable, the current account deficit has become worrisome and crude really becomes an outside factor in this, which any of the players in India can do little about, given our dependence on imported crude."

The sell-off in financial, FMCG, select infrastructure, metal and technology companies' shares weighed on the markets. Heavyweight Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel too added pressure with a 0.9% fall each.

However, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and select auto companies' shares outperformed other largecaps today. ONGC, Wipro, SAIL, DLF, BHEL, Ambuja Cements, Sun Pharma and IDFC too were quite supportive and capped the losses to some extent.

Crude continues to remain a cause of concern for global markets. European markets like France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were down 0.9%, at the time of closing of Indian equities. US index futures too slipped half a percent. Asian markets remained under pressure and ended with 0.5-1.5% falls.