By IANS
Mumbai : The Indian capital markets opened on a choppy note Thursday in alignment with Asian peers. After registering a loss of over 650 points on Wednesday, the market may exhibit weak trends and volatile intra-day moves, analysts said.
At around 11.00 a.m., the sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was trading at 18,634.65, gaining 32.03 points or 0.17 percent. The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was trading down by 11.30 points or 0.20 percent at 5,550.
The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices have also lost steam. The BSE mid-cap index trading at 8,129.67 declined by 88.17 points or 1.07 percent. The BSE small-cap index tumbled 146.62 points or 1.43 percent plotting at 10,118.61.
US indices slumped on Wednesday, with the Dow closing at a seven-month low, on worries about the credit and mortgage market and higher oil prices. The Dow Jones slid over 211 points to close at 12,799 while the Nasdaq slipped by 35 points at 2,562 amid weak tech stocks.
Indian floats trading on the US bourses fell sharply. VSNL tumbled over eight percent and ICICI Bank slipped over seven percent, while HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, MTNL, Rediff, Dr Reddy’s and Patni Computers were down over 2-6 percent each.
Crude oil prices in the global market slipped marginally on Wednesday. The Nymex light crude oil for January series slipped 74 cents to $97.29 per barrel. In the commodity segment, the Comex gold for December delivery moved up by $7.20 to settle at $798.60 an ounce.
Asian indices were mixed Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.40 percent or 59.75 points to 14,777.91, South Korea’s Seoul Composite declined 0.25 percent or 4.51 points to 1,802.48. However, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.67 percent or 179.03 points to 26,797.22, Taiwan’s Taiwan Weighted was up 0.08 percent or 6.80 points to 8,490.91 and Singapore’s Straits Times climbed 0.08 percent or 2.83 points to 3,350.03.
Top gainers on the Sensex Thursday morning were SBI which scaled up by 2.66 percent to Rs.2,212, Bajaj Auto advanced 2.25 percent to Rs.2,476.50 and Hindalco moved up by 1.87 percent to Rs.188.
The top losers on the Sensex were HDFC down by 1.74 percent to Rs.2,555, NTPC declined 1.48 percent to Rs.235.95 and DLF slid down by 1.45 percent to Rs.857.90.