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Sensex recovers from early lows

MUMBAI: Lingering European debt crisis and its contagion effect rocks the financial markets around the world. Further its impact on Europe's common currency, euro, sent global markets slipping into the red.

In highly volatile trading, the Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share index, Sensex, closed with a loss of 159.04 points at 16835. It dropped 271.27 points last Friday. The Sensex plunged nearly 400 points intra-day. But Larsen & Toubro's forecast-beating quarterly earnings reduced the losses during the later part of trading. Investors resorted to heavy selling after a steep fall in the U.S. markets last Friday and weak opening on Asian stock markets in morning trade. The Dow Jones Industrial Average last Friday lost 162.79 points, or 1.51 per cent, to 10620.16. The broader Standard and Poor's 500 Index fell 21.76 points, or 1.88 per cent, to 1135.68. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index lost 47.51 points, or 1.98 per cent, to 2346.85. While writing this report, U.S. markets opened for Monday: Dow Jones was down by 12.93 points at 10607.23; Nasdaq was up by 11.58 points at 2358.43; and S&P 500 was up by 1.90 points at 1137.56.

Markets are at a cross-road without any cues for further direction. Even a fall in wholesale price inflation, which came down to 9.59 per cent in April from 9.90 per cent a month ago, failed to enthuse investor sentiment.

The National Stock Exchange index Nifty lost 33.60 points to 5059.90, after touching a low of 4966.25.

Broader indices, BSE mid-cap (minus 0.21 per cent), small-cap (minus 0.68 per cent) and BSE 500 (minus 0.50 per cent) ended in the negative territory.

Among sectoral indices on BSE oil and gas was the worst hit losing 1.85 per cent, followed by IT (minus 1.80 per cent) and auto (minus 1.27 per cent). However, CG (2.80 per cent), HC (0.52 per cent), FMCG (0.38 per cent) and Power (0.10 per cent) ended in the positive territory.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei was down by 226.75 points or 2.17 per cent at 10235.76 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dipped by 430.23 points to 19715.20.

Rupee weak

The rupee touched its weakest level in nearly two-and-half months on Monday as debt worries in the euro zone sent its common currency, euro to four-year lows.

The rupee closed at 45.62/63 a dollar after hitting an intra-day low of 45.77, its weakest since March 5. It dropped 0.9 per cent as compared to its previous close of 45.21/22.

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