Sensex, Nifty end at near 20-month closing low; BHEL outperforms

3:30 pm Market closing: The market has ended at nearly 20-month closing low. The Sensex slipped 266.67 points or 1 percent at 24188.37 and the Nifty was down 86.80 points or 1 percent at 7351. About 333 shares have advanced, 2389 shares declined, and 142 shares were unchanged.

BHEL, Tata Steel, Adani Ports, TCS and HUL were top gainers while Reliance, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, L&T and SBI were major losers.

3:15 pm Market skids again: The Sensex is down 311.23 points or 1.3 percent at 24143.81, and the Nifty down 99.10 points or 1.3 percent at 7338.70. About 309 shares have advanced, 2379 shares declined, and 131 shares are unchanged.

2:40 pm Market extends losses: Equity benchmarks extended losses again amid volatility. The Sensex fell 182.52 points to 24272.52 and the Nifty declined 54.10 points to 7383.70.

About 2309 shares declined against 343 advancing shares on the BSE.

Reliance Industries and Bajaj Auto tanked 3.5 percent followed by HDFC, HDFC Bank, L&T and ICICI Bank.

2:20 pm Europe Update: European stocks staged a relief rally today, rebounding from lows seen on Friday when Wall Street slumped to levels not seen since August last year.

The pan-European STOXX 600 traded over 1 percent higher, with all major indices trading in the black despite the volatility seen in Asia markets earlier today.

Markets have suffered one of the worst starts to the year on record, with European stocks slumping to their lowest level since mid-December 2014 on Friday amid investor fears of the strength of the global economy.

2:00 pm Market Check
The market continued to be under pressure amid consolidation despite positive trend in European peers. The Sensex fell 76.39 points to 24378.65 and the Nifty declined 21.85 points to 7415.95.

The broader markets saw major fall compared to benchmarks. The BSE Midcap was down 1.4 percent and Smallcap tanked 2.7 percent.

The market breadth remained pathetic as about six shares declined for every share advancing on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Nifty PSU Bank index outperformed market, up more than 1 percent supported by Syndicate Bank, Bank of Baroda, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and SBI that rallied 1-3 percent.

1:30 pm China: In an interview to CNBC-TV18, David Mann, Head- Asia Economic Research at Standard Chartered, says there has been no serious stimulus by the policy makers in China and the fact is becoming difficult for the market to absorb. There is a weak investor confidence and the situation is taking longer to stabilize, he adds. Furthermore, he believes US growth will continue to slow down going forward.

The market is still reeling under pressure as the Sensex is down 114.87 points or 0.5 percent at 24340.17. The Nifty is down 35.85 points or 0.5 percent at 7401.95. About 328 shares have advanced, 2221 shares declined, and 115 shares are unchanged.

BHEL, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, GAIL and TCS are top gainers while Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Dr Reddy's Labs are losers in the Sensex.

Gold opened the trading week higher, buoyed by safe-haven bids after Asian equities tumbled to their lowest since 2011 as investors shunned risky assets on the heels of weak US economic data.

US retail sales fell in December along with industrial production, the latest indication that economic growth braked sharply in the fourth quarter. Oil prices slid to the lowest since 2003.

The renewed weakness in the world's top economy raises doubts about whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again in March, boding well for non-interest bearing assets like gold.

12:20 pm Oil slides: Oil prices hit their lowest since 2003 today, as the market braced for a jump in Iranian exports after the lifting of sanctions against the country at the weekend.

The UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday said Tehran had met its commitments to curtail its nuclear program, and the United States immediately revoked sanctions that had slashed the OPEC member's oil exports by around 2 million barrels per day (bpd) since their pre-sanctions 2011 peak to little more than 1 million bpd.

Iran is ready to increase its crude exports by 500,000 bpd, its deputy oil minister said on Sunday.

International Brent crude fell to USD 27.67 a barrel early today, its lowest since 2003, before recovering to USD 28.42, still down 1.8 percent from its settlement on Friday. US crude was down 51 cents at USD 28.91 a barrel, after hitting a 2003-low of USD 28.36 earlier in the session.

12:00 pm Market Check
Equity benchmarks as well as broader markets continued to be under pressure in noon trade following correction in Asian markets, weighed down by oil, banking & financials, infra and auto stocks. However, technology and FMCG stocks limited downside.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 124.18 points to 24330.86 and the 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 37.70 points to 7400.10. The market breadth remained in favour of declines; more than seven shares fell for every share advancing on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The BSE Midcap was down 1.5 percent and Smallcap crashed 2.9 percent.

Tata Steel and BHEL outperformed, rising more than 2 percent followed by Axis Bank, GAIL, Infosys, TCS, ITC and HUL.

HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, HDFC, ONGC, L&T, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel were negative contributors to Sensex's fall, down 1-3 percent.

Asian markets barring China traded in red. Hang Seng and Nikkei were down more than 1 percent while Shanghai gained 1 percent. The Australian market finished session in the red, with the main ASX 200 index closing down 35 points at 4,857.80, nearing bear market territory after falling 18.78 percent from its 52-week high of 5,982.69 in April 2015.

11:45 am IOC: Indian Oil Corporation 's latest refinery here, the first in over a decade for the nation's largest fuel major, started production of petrol from the Rs 34,555-crore facility. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the 15 MMTPA Paradip Refinery, which will primarily be producing BS-IV fuels and serving the eastern and southeastern markets apart from exports, to the nation on February 7. The commissioning of the refinery comes after 14 years, owing to many flip-flops by the Naveen Patanik government on incentives, withdrawal of its foreign partner Kuwait Petroleum and stiff frequent opposition from locals, state politicians and NGOs apart from two killer cyclones.

11:30 am Deal: Reliance Communications and Reliance Jio on Monday announced the signing of agreements for change in spectrum allotment in 800 MHz band across 9 circles from RCOM to Jio, and for sharing of spectrum in 800 MHz band across 17 circles. While addressing shareholders at its Annual General Meeting in December, Anil Ambani had first spoken about such a tie-up and had termed it as a 'virtual consolidation'. With this, RCom customers will be able to access Jio's 4G LTE network under reciprocal sharing and ICR agreements, while access to enhanced spectrum footprint in the 800 MHz band will complement Jio's LTE services rollout, providing increased network coverage and superior service quality.

The market is rangebound after severe cuts. The Sensex is down 18.71 point at 24436.33 and the Nifty is down 6.30 points at 7431.50. About 303 shares have advanced, 2006 shares declined, and 86 shares are unchanged.

Tata Steel, GAIL, Axis Bank, Lupin and BHEL are top gainers while Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Hero MotoCorp, Dr Reddy's and L&T are losers in the Sensex.

Meanwhile, China's yuan is firmed as the central bank announced new moves to curb offshore speculation in the currency, while stocks were volatile after the securities regulator blamed immature markets and inexperienced investors for their latest meltdown.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it would start implementing a reserve requirement ratio for some banks involved in the offshore yuan market, in a move that seemed intended to soak up additional liquidity.

10:50 am Market Update: Equity benchmarks pared losses. The Sensex recovered more than 150 points from day's low, down 8.96 points to 24446.08.

The Nifty hit an intraday low of 7383.35, before showing recovery. The index fell 3.05 points to 7434.75.

The broader markets continued to be under pressure as the BSE Midcap shed 1.1 percent and Smallcap crumbled 2.6 percent. Even the market breadth was pathetic as more than seven shares declined for every share advancing on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

10:35 am IOC in news: Indian Oil Corporation 's latest refinery here, the first in over a decade for the nation's largest fuel major, started production of petrol from the Rs 34,555-crore facility.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the 15 MMTPA Paradip Refinery, which will primarily be producing BS-IV fuels and serving the eastern and southeastern markets apart from exports, to the nation on February 7.

The commissioning of the refinery comes after 14 years, owing to many flip-flops by the Naveen Patanik government on incentives, withdrawal of its foreign partner Kuwait Petroleum and stiff frequent opposition from locals, state politicians and NGOs apart from two killer cyclones.

10:25 am Earnings estimates: Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank 's profitability is likely to improve due to better operating performance in quarter ended December 2015.

According to analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, standalone profit is seen rising 10.6 percent sequentially to Rs 630.1 crore and net interest income may increase 2.1 percent to Rs 1,713 crore during the quarter.

In previous quarter, the bank had said integration cost should be completed by FY16-end and savings should flow FY17 onwards.

Analysts feel integration cost is likely to be maintained for December quarter, which was at Rs 12 crore in Q2FY16 against Rs 63 crore in preceding quarter.

10:15 am FII View: Nomura says the market declines of 2015 provide a firm base from which it expects a recovery of 15-25 percent in 2016.

While global linkages are countering the improved domestic economy, the brokerage expects the reform process to move forward, with public spending to start supporting higher growth.

It forecasts a market rebound based on recovery in earnings growth, lower interest rates and a pick-up in sequential growth momentum.

10:00 am Market Check
There seems to be no end to selling in Indian market. The Nifty is now below 7400, first time since June 2014. The 50-share index is down 45.50 points or 0.6 percent at 7392.30. The Sensex is down 145.36 points or 0.6 percent at 24309.68.About 199 shares have advanced, 1851 shares declined, and 63 shares are unchanged.

Nifty Bank is also below 15000 for first time since 2014. Nifty Midcap is at 52-week low. Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel, Cipla, ONGC and Hindalco are among major laggards. GAIL, Infosys, NTPC, TCS and ITC are gainers in the Sensex.

Oil prices hit their lowest since 2003 in early trading, as the market braced for a jump in Iranian exports after the lifting of sanctions against the country at the weekend.

9:55 am Result: Karnataka Bank registered a decline of 9.4 percent in its net profit at Rs 96.91 crore for the third quarter ended December. The bank's net profit stood at Rs 106.94 crore in the same quarter of 2014-15. "Total income has increased to Rs 1,369.83 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015, from Rs 1,364.69 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014," it said in a BSE filing. On the asset quality front, the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank stood at 3.56 percent of gross advances as of December 31, 2015, slightly up from 3.44 percent a year ago.

9:45 am Market cap erosion: The combined market valuation of seven of the top-10 most valued Sensex firms declined by Rs 48,762.5 crore last week, with IT bellwether TCS taking the steepest hit. While TCS, HDFC Bank , CIL , Sun Pharma , ONGC , HDFC and HUL suffered losses in their market capitalisation (m-cap), RIL , Infosys and ITC emerged as gainers. Software major TCS, which reported a lower-than-expected 14.2 percent growth in net profit for the October-December quarter on Tuesday (January 12), witnessed an erosion of Rs 26,354.48 crore from its m-cap, which stood at Rs 4,46,006.36 crore.

9:30 am Wipro results: Wipro's third quarter consolidated profit declined to Rs 2,234.1 crore compared to Rs 2,235.4 crore in preceding quarter while revenue increased 3 percent sequentially to Rs 12,951.6 crore. IT services revenue missed analysts' expectations, rising 2.25 percent to Rs 12,314 crore in quarter ended December 2015 compared to Rs 12,042.8 crore in preceding quarter.

Dollar revenue increased 0.3 percent sequentially to USD 1,838.3 million during the quarter, which too was a miss but operational performance was slightly ahead of estimates.

The market has opened flat as the Sensex is down 16.96 points at 24438.08. The Nifty slips 12.50 points at 7425.30. About 225 shares have advanced, 417 shares declined, and 61 shares are unchanged.

ICICI Bank, Maruti, SBI, Sun Pharma and L&T are top gainers while Adani Ports, Wipro, ONGC, Hindalco and BHEL are losers in the Sensex.

The Indian rupee slipped to a fresh two years low. It has opened lower by 10 paise at 67.70 per dollar versus 67.60 Friday.

The rupee fell to a fresh over two-year low on Friday against the US dollar. It was down 1.45 percent last week, which is biggest weekly decline since week ended August 14, 2015. The safe haven yen got off to a flying start today as Asian equities tumble following a big selloff on Wall Street. The dollar index slipped below the 99 mark.

Asian markets opened sharply lower this morning following a big selloff on Wall Street. Japan's Nikkei touched its lowest levels in nearly a year. The Chinese central bank set yuan mid-point at 6.5590/$ while the safe-haven yen got off to a flying start.

Gold prices surged Rs 340 to hit over two-month high of Rs 26,550 per ten grams at the bullion market today, taking positive cues from global market amid pick up in buying by jewellers to meet wedding season demand.