INR

92.696

United States Dollar

The Nifty ended the day 93 points lower and went below the 5400 mark for the first time since Sept 2011, but managed to close above the 5400 levels. It closed lower by 93 points at 5414 points. Bond yields on the 10-year government notes rallied beyond 9 per cent mark for the first time since November 2011.

The Sensex which collapsed a huge 749 points on Friday, fell another 320 points (provisional) as carnage continued unabated. Dealers say that foreign funds continued to press sales in stocks, particularly the banking names, even as domestic institutions made purchases in select counters.

A peculiar characteristic of today's trade was the sharp decline in pharma stocks, which otherwise are known to remain resilient. Sun Pharma, Lupin Pharma and Cipla all lost more then 4 per cent in trade raising the fears that FIIs may have pressed sales, given the huge holding of these institutions in pharma stocks. IT shares, however, remained resilient with TCS, Infosys and HCL ending the day flat.

The worst affected in trade was the banking sector which came under heavy selling pressure. Yes Bank tumbled almost 6 per cent in trade, while ICICI Bank and Axis Bank both ended lower by 5 per cent each.

Other banking stocks that collapsed in trade were Bank of Baroda, IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank. Heavyweights, like ITC and Reliance did not lend any support to the indices with ITC losing 2 per cent, while Reliance ended the day flat.

Metal stocks, however, saw some buying interest with the likes of Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Hindalco among the gainers.

From the realty sector, Sobha Developers dropped 7 per cent, while Unitech ended the day lower by more then 1 per cent.

Meanwhile, bond yields surged past the 9 per cent mark at 9.02 per cent, largely on account of a falling rupee, which hit a low of 61.82 in trade today.

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