FRESH INTRA DAY LOW

The benchmark equity indices have continued to slide and hit fresh intra-day's low in late morning session as weak global cues weighed on the sentiments. Investors remained concerned about a possible contraction in investment cycle going ahead due to recent hike in interest rate by RBI. European markets and the US index futures were trading in red. Majority of the Asian markets settled in red on worries of further monetary tightening by China, the world's second largest economy. Back home, in the BSE sectoral front, all the sectoral stocks were under pressure except realty stocks. Metal stocks saw selling pressure after the commodity slump. The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were trading below their psychological levels of 18,500 and 5,500 respectively. The market breadth on the BSE was in favor of declines in the ratio of 946:1719 while 119 scrips remained unchanged. The broader markets were also witnessing selling pressure.

The BSE Sensex shed 247.01 points or 1.33% at 18,337.95. The index touched a high and a low of 18,610.02 and 18,329.08 respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap index lost 0.83% and Small-cap index fell 0.88%.

All the sectoral indices on the BSE barring Realty up 0.07% were trading in red. Metal down 2.55%, Bankex down 1.37%, Capital Goods down 1.29%, IT down 1.20% and Power down 1.20% were the major laggards in the space.

On the BSE Sensex HUL up 0.92%, DLF up 0.70% and R Com up 0.82% were the only gainers.

On the flip side Hindalco down 4.56%, Sterlite down 3.91%, JP Associates down 2.48%, HDFC down 2.44% and TCS down 2.07% were the major losers on the index.

Meanwhile, India's industrial growth-IIP has surprisingly jumped to 7.3% in March from 3.6% in February; however the Industrial production had grown 15.5% a year ago. The Industrial output has remained fragile in the past few months hurt by the central bank's aggressive stance against inflation which has affected the pace of expansion of the economy. Another reason for the March numbers looking shoddier is mainly on account of a high base effect despite the figures being better than consensus expectations of around 3.61%. The unexpected improvement has came on the back of strong performance by the capital goods numbers which after three months of contraction  increased by 12.91% compared to 36% (Y-o-Y).

Clearly, even as some segments have slowed down, it is the sharp expansion in the capital goods products which has pulled up growth in overall IIP. Some of the important items of Capital goods that contributed to the high growth in this category were Turbines (steam/hydro) rising by 67.6%, Process control instruments up by 42.9%, Boilers gaining by 31.5% and Complete tractors which rose by 30.2%. Alarm time pieces up 59.7%, two wheeler tyres up 55.5% and Passenger cars up 33.6% were some of the important items that contributed towards the high growth of Consumer durable goods.

Manufacturing sector which accounts for almost 80% of the IIP product-mix expanded by 7.9% compared with 16.4% growth seen in the same month a year ago. Electricity sector also performed well expanding at 7.2% as against 8.3% growth a year ago. Mining was the only sector that failed to perform well with growth of just 0.02% compared with 12.3% growth a year ago.

Consumer durables, which were responsible for early part of the IIP rally last year, expanded at 12.3% against 23.4% in the year-ago period. Consumer non-durables on the other hand saw significantly better growth of 5.7% as against a growth of 1.5% seen in the same month of previous year. Intermediate goods showed some slowdown with a growth of 5.4% against 13.5% expansion seen last year. Production of basic good grew by 4.3% versus 10.5% in March 2010.

The S&P CNX Nifty trimmed 76.85 points or 1.38% at 5488.20. The index touched high and low of 5,572.50 and 5483.80, respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Siemens up 1.39%, DLF up 0.77%, HUL up 0.68%, Ranbaxy up 0.54% and Reliance Communication up 0.05%.

On the other hand, Hindalco down 4.83%, Sterlite down 4.15%, IDFC down 2.59%, JP Associate down 2.59% and Power Grid down 2.59% were the major losers on the index.

All other Asian markets barring Taiwan Weighted which added 0.15% settled in red. Shanghai Composite plunged 1.13%, Hang Seng sank 0.94%, Jakarta Composite declined 0.77%, KLSE Composite eased 0.24%, Nikkei 225 plummeted 1.50%, Straits Times shaved off 1.47% and Seoul Composite nosedived 2.03%.

The European markets were trading in a negative note.CAC 40 slipped 1.20%, DAX shed 1.40% and FTSE 100 dropped 1.06%.