Stock Market Updates for Today (12th August '11)
A strong close on Wall Street overnight and an impressive show by stocks on the Asian bourses set up a buoyant start for Indian stocks Friday morning. However, after the first hour, the market faltered and kept drifting lower following a surprisingly upbeat industrial production data for June raising fears of another rate hike by the central bank.
The sharp surge in food inflation too weighed on sentiment to a significant extent. Ignoring some good report cards from India, investors indulged in some selling right through the day, fearing a significan drop in earnings over the next few quarters due to rising borrowing costs.
According to the data released by the government on friday, India's industrial output, as measured by the IIP, grew by 8.8% in June versus consensus forecast of 5.5-5.7%. The Government also revised May's IIP reading to 5.9%, from 5.6% earlier.
Information technology, bank and realty stocks were among the prominent losers. Several stocks from power and metal sectors too ended notably lower. Oil, capital goods and automobile stocks gave up early gains and ended weak. Select FMCG and healthcare stocks found some support. Midcap and smallcap stocks managed to outperform the market till around mid afternoon but lost their way towards the end of the session.
The Sensex, which opened with a positive gap of nearly 200 points at 17,246.88 - it remained its high for the day - but plunged to 16,784.56 in afternoon trade, ended the day with a loss of 219.77 points or 1.29% at 16,839.63. The National Stock Exchange's benchmark Nifty closed at 5072.95, nearly 125 points off the day's high of 5194.45, recording a loss of 65.35 points or 1.27%.
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