Weakness persists

The market made a slight recovery from its lows in mid-afternoon trade. The market had declined sharply in afternoon trade hit by the latest data which showed a further rise in inflation. Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel) and Larsen & Toubro were major losers whereas Ranbaxy Laboratories and Tata Steel were gainers from the Sensex pack. Banking stocks fell after concerns of possible Reserve Bank of India intervention to rein in inflation. IT, capital goods, power and realty stocks declined. The market breadth was weak. European markets which opened after Indian market, were in green

At 14:25 IST, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 399.64 points or 2.52% at 15,432.91. At the day’s low of 15,349.25 Sensex lost 483.3 points in afternoon trade. At the day’s high of 15,896.09, the Sensex rose 63.54 points in early trade.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 102.9 points or 2.16% at 4,668.70.

India's wholesale price index (WPI) rose 7% in the 12 months to 22 March 2008, accelerating from the previous week's rise of 6.68%. The rate is the highest since 4 December 2004.

The market breadth was turned weak: on BSE 817 shares advanced as compared to 1729 that declined. 73 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Mid-Cap index down 1.46% to Rs 6,294.04 and BSE Small-Cap index down 1.23% to 7,744.15.

India’s largest private sector company in terms of market capitalisation and oil refiner Reliance Industries was down 1.75% to Rs 2,350.95.

Realty stocks declined. Unitech (down 2.6% to Rs 267.80), DLF (down 1.84% to Rs 612.25) and Indiabulls Real Estate (down 1.5% to Rs 490.55) edged lower.

Capital goods stocks fell. Bharat Heavy Electricals (down 6.18% to Rs 1,646.50) and Larsen & Toubro (down 6.14% to Rs 2,675) edged lower. Suzlon Energy rose 1.62% to Rs 276.50.

Banking stocks plunged after inflation data. HDFC Bank (down 2.06% to Rs 1,299.10), ICICI Bank (down 1.94% to Rs 772.60) and State Bank of India (down 1.78% to Rs 1,610.50) edged lower.

Power stocks declined. Tata Power Company (down 3.56% to Rs 1,118), Reliance Energy (down 3% to Rs 1,153.80), NTPC (down 1.39% to Rs 191.55) and Reliance Power (down 1.58% to Rs 324.50) edged lower.

IT stocks declined after yesterday’s surge. Infosys (down 2.68% to Rs 1,480.10), Satyam Computer Services (down 1.6% to Rs 421.15), Wipro (down 3.53% to Rs 419.95) and Tata Consultancy Services (down 1.66% to Rs 871.25) edged lower.

HDFC (down 5.39% to Rs 2,311), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 4.92% to Rs 612), Maruti Suzuki India (down 2.58% to Rs 768), Reliance Communications (down 2.62% to Rs 499.60), Jaiprakash Associates (down 3.38% to Rs 225.60) and Tata Motors (down 2.5% to Rs 613.45) edged lower from Sensex pack.

Ranbaxy Laboratories (up 2.84% to Rs 459.50), Tata Steel (up 0.74% to Rs 664.40) were only gainers from Sensex pack.

ACC shed 0.16% to Rs 835 even as the company said its cement shipments rose 4.9% to 1.92 million tonnes in March 2008 over March 2007.