Markets mauled again as FII sales hammer stocks; IT stocks gain on rupee fall

Markets nosedived again on Wednesday with the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark, the S&P BSE Sensex, slipping over 500 points in morning trade even as the sectoral IT stocks index hit a 12-year high on the back of a falling rupee.

The Sensex recovered sharply after slipping around 520 points, but the market remained under pressure. 

At 1:50 pm, the Sensex was down 113.29 points or 0.63 per cent at 17,854.79 while the broader National Stock Exchange index Nifty was down around 35 points at 5,250. The Nifty had earlier plunged nearly 170 points.

All sectoral indices, barring the technology stocks, were in the red, with banks, realty and oil and gas leading the decline.

Buoyed by the depreciation of rupee against the dollar, the BSE IT index hit a 12-year high as demand for shares of information technology (IT) companies rose in an otherwise weak market after the Indian currency breached the 67-a-dollar mark, hitting another life-low of 68.89 today.

IT index touched high of 7,862, its highest level in past twelve years, during intra-day trade. The index hit record high of 8,678 in 2000 IT boom.

At 1:50 pm, the BSE IT index, a sole gainer among the sectoral indices, was still up 159.18 points, or 2.09 per cent, at 7,787.91 as compared to the previous close of 7628.73 on Tuesday.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, Infosys, MphasiS, MindTree, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra were trading higher by 1 to 6 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Among the individual stocks, TCS was up nearly 6 per cent at Rs1,942. Wipro and Infosys rose 2 per cent each, while HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra were up 1 per cent each.

Stocks of realty firms dropped for the second straight day. Auto stocks also declined. Among bank stocks, shares of State Bank of India (SBI) hit 52-week low. The NTPC stock seems to have bottomed out after hitting a 52-week low. Cement stocks also tumbled.

The losses in early trade were fuelled by stocks fall across the globe on fears of a possible US military strike in Syria.

The S&P BSE Midcap Index was down 80 points, or 1.53 per cent, at 5197.46 and the S&P BSE Smallcap Index was down 63.78 points, or 1.23 per cent at  5135.88.

The S&P BSE Bankex was down 209.56 points or 2.0 per cent at 9899.16, after falling 4.06 per cent. The S&P BSE Realty Index was down 32.42 points, or 2.73 per cent at 1154.46, after falling 3.92 per cent in the morning.

The S&P BSE Oil & Gas Index was down 147.21 points, or 1.8 per cent, at 57811.14, after declining 3.54 per cent and the S&P BSE Capital Goods Index was down 54.84 points, or 0.792.49 per cent, at 6925.84.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs1373.99 crore while domestic institutional investors were net buyers worth Rs480.5 crore on Tuesday as per the provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.

Asian stocks were under pressure on concerns over a US strike on Syria. The Nikkei 225 fell 1.74 per cent, Hang Seng was down 1.38 per cent, Kospi was 0.35 per cent lower and Shanghai Composite slipped 0.41 cent.