Sensex plummets 435 pts as bears strike; Inflation at 12.63

Sensex plummets 435 pts as bears strike

After a weak start this morning, the market kept losing ground as the session progressed as the bears, who had taken a breather yesterday, swung back into action once again.
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With global markets turning weak and crude oil prices inching higher, investors were in no mood to build up positions this morning. Fears of interest rates hardening further on the back of high inflation and lower growth appeared to have weighed in significantly in afternoon trade.

While the Sensex, which tanked to a low of 14,201.18 in late afternoon trade, ended with a loss of 434.50 points or 2.96% at 14,243.73, the Nifty closed lower by 131.90 points or 2.99% at 4283.85, a few points off a low of 4271.30.

Interest rate sensitive bank and realty stocks took a severe hammering. Mirroring the sell-off in these sectors, the Bankex and Realty indices tumbled by 5.16% and 5.05% respectively.
PSU, power, capital goods, metal, media & communications and information technology stocks too declined sharply. Reflecting their fall, the respective sectoral indices drifted down by 2% - 3.75% today. The Oil & Gas barometer slipped by 1.94%. HC and Auto indices lost around 1.5% each while the Consumer Durables and FMCG indices eased by around a per cent.

Midcap and smallcap stocks also attracted heavy selling and mirroring their decline, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices lost 2.04% and 1.83% respectively.

The market breadth was very weak today. Out of 2713 stocks traded on BSE, 1914 stocks finished on a negative note. 734 stocks posted gains and 65 stocks ended flat. Ranbaxy Laboratories (up 1.55% to Rs 513.40) was the lone gainer from the Sensex pack. Among Nifty stocks, besides Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cairn India (1.8%) and ABB (0.15%) were the ones to end on a positive note.

State Bank of India closed with a big loss of 7.1%. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, the other banking sector heavyweights in the Sensex, went down by 5.8% and 5.15% respectively.

NTPC, DLF, Reliance Infrastructure, Jaiprakash Associates and HDFC lost 4% - 6%. Reliance Communications, BHEL, Hindalco, Larsen & Toubro, Grasim Industries, ACC, Wipro, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, ONGC and Infosys Technologies eased by 2% - 4%.

Bharti Airtel, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, Sterlite Industries, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki and Satyam Computer Services also closed on a weak note. Nalco, Unitech, BPCL, Tata Communications, Suzlon Energy, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Punjab National Bank, Ambuja Cements, HCL Technologies, SAIL, Reliance Petroleum and Idea Cellular ended sharply lower.

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Inflation rate rises to 12.63%

India's annual rate of inflation zoomed to a 16-year high of 12.63 percent for the week ended Aug 9, as compared to 12.44 percent the week before, but an unfazed finance ministry said prices had stabilised.

"Prices of essential commodities, which include food grain, pulses, edible oil, vegetable, dairy products and some other products including kerosene, soap and safety matches have more or less stabilised," the finance ministry said in a statement.

The official wholesale price index (WPI) released by the ministry of commerce and industry Thursday showed an increase of 0.3 percent in the index for food article, while that of textile group rose 1.6 percent.

Non-metallic index products rose 0.3 percent.

The increase in index for food articles was due to higher prices of masoor dal (3 percent), tea, moong and gram (2 percent each) and milk (1 percent).The index for manufactured products like mustard oil rose 0.2 percent while that of rubber and plastic products by 0.2 percent.

The index for non-food articles group like sunflower, raw rubber and cotton declined by 0.6 percent and the index for chemical and chemical products like benzene declined by 0.1 percent.
The ministry said the WPI for all commodities stood at 236.9 as compared to 236.1 (provisional) for the week ended June 14 and annual rate of inflation based on final index, calculated on point-to-point basis, stood at 11.8 percent as compared to 11.42 percent (provisional).

The finance ministry in a statement said inflation rate for 30 essential commodities stood at 6.74 percent for the week ending Aug 9, compared to 6.54 percent for the week before.

Double digit inflation to continue till December: D&B
Earlier Thursday, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said the problem of inflation was short term and would moderate in due course, as the government has taken several monetary and administrative measures to rein in inflation.
"Inflation will moderate. Let's have patience," Ahluwalia said.
Ahluwalia also brushed aside apprehensions that the government's recent decision to hike employees' salaries would have any adverse impact on the country's economy.

Inflation or terms of trade adjustment?
"We will be able to deal with any implications (arising out of the salary hike)," he said.
The Prime minister's Economic Advisory Council (EAC), in its "Economic Outlook Report 2008-09", has predicted a 7.7 percent economic growth in the current fiscal, as compared to 9.1 percent last fiscal.

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Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor C. Rangarajan, while releasing the EAC's economic outlook report here Aug 13, said inflation would moderate to 8-9 percent by March 2009.