On Monday 18 July 2011, Cautious global setup served to be major cause behind the decline of Indian equity markets in today's trade, as worries over a potential US sovereign debt default, ongoing concerns over the euro zone debt crisis prompted investors to shun riskier assets, thereby encouraging the bourses to extend its downtrend for second consecutive session. Local bourses oscillated in narrow range amidst the listless trade on Monday as investor's lacking the conviction stuck on the sidelines owing to the dearth of positive triggers. Similar to the previous trading session, benchmark indices after showcasing immense optimism at the dawn of the trade, failed to hold on to the spirit, thereby ending the lackluster day of trade in the “red zone”. However, approaching the closing, they cut their losses and emerged over their day's low as market men covered some pending shorts towards the end of the trade. On the global front,
US market closed with marginal gains on Friday after results from the European banks' stress tests came out slightly better than expected and on good earnings announcement by Google and Citigroup, though the concerns of the US debt ceiling issue kept looming large. The European Banking Authority (EBA) said on Friday that of the 90 European banks tested, only eight had failed the 'stress tests' performed to determine if they could withstand a long recession.Expectations were for up to 15 banks to fall short.. The European shares extended the previous week's declines on Monday as bank stocks took a fresh beating on the first trading day following a much-hyped capital stress test that failed to dispel fears about the impact of the regional debt crisis.
The BSE Sensex lost 76.83 points or 0.41% and settled at 18,485.09. The index touched a high and a low of 18,622.56 and 18,469.53 respectively. 11 stocks advanced against 19 declining ones on the index. The BSE Mid-cap index gain 0.19% while Small-cap index was up 0.34%. On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty up 0.93%, Consumer Durables up 0.75%, Metal up 0.43%, Power up 0.29% and PSU up 0.17% were the top gainers. On the flip side, Auto down 1.21%, IT down 0.92%, Health Care down 0.83%, Teck down 0.71% and Oil & Gas down 0.39% were the top losers.
India vix,a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility gained 1.25% at 20.20 from its previous close of 19.95 on Friday. The S&P CNX Nifty lost 19.85 points or 0.36% to settle at 5,561.25. The index touched high and low of 5,596.60 and 5,550.95 respectively. 20 stocks advanced against 30 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)
Most of the Asian equity indices finished the day's trade in the negative territory on Monday despite Friday's better-than-expected European bank stress-test results, as investors continued to fret over euro-zone sovereign debt while, debt problems in the US too dampened the sentiments in the region. Chinese index Shanghai Composite edged lower in the trade, weighed down by energy shares on news reports the government may broaden taxes to protect natural resources.
