Nifty erases 50% gains as investors dump L&T, bank stocks
24 Oct 2011
The market has lost more than half of morning gains due to sell-off in banking and capital goods stocks. Oil & gas, technology, FMCG, power, auto and realty stocks were quite supportive. The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 137 points to 16,922.5 and the 50-share NSE Nifty moved up 44 points to 5,094.
Shares of public sector banks fell after Union Bank of India reported disappointing quarterly numbers. The bank reported a 16% (QoQ) rise in net profit to Rs 353 crore in the second quarter of FY12. This was below way street expectations and dampened sentiments towards public sector banks. Shares of India's largest lender SBI fell 2.5% and that of PNB fell 1%. Union Bank plunged 11%. Private lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank declined 0.4% each.
L&T and Reliance Communications plunged 3% each. Coal India and BHEL were down 0.5-0.85%.
However, ONGC, TCS, Tata Motors, HUL, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto and Reliance Power gained 3-4%. Reliance Industries, Infosys, ITC, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, Wipro and HDFC were up 1-1.5%.
The market breadth was in favour of declines; about 599 shares gained as against 806 shares declined on National Stock Exchange.
On the global front, European markets were trading off day's high. France's CAC was down 0.2% while Britain's FTSE and Germany's DAX gained 0.25% and 0.5%, respectively.
