UNDER PRESSURE

Barometer gauges continued to reel under pressure after witnessing an early carnage, across the board, which sank 30 scrip sensitive index, Sensex, below the 16000 psychological level and Nifty sub 4900 bastion. Moody's Investor Service extensive downgrade of 16 Spanish banks on Thursday, including Banco Santander, the euro zone's largest bank, mainly triggered savage sell-off across risk asset class such as equities. Spain's banks, soaked in bad loans after a real estate boom went bust, are at the heart of the euro zone debt crisis since markets dread a state bailout would put a severe strain on the country's already stretched public finances.

Much of the strain is being inserted by regional counterparts, which staggering under selling pressure, are endorsing the risk averse milieu. Asian shares were set for their worst weekly showing since September, after latest sluggish economic data from the United States added to the list of risks for investors. U.S. data showed manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic unexpectedly contracted in May.  The US future indices, in the meanwhile, depicted sharp downtick in the screen trade.

Back on the home turf, both Sensex and Nifty tottering near the 15800 and 4800 level, were depicting colossal losses of over a percentage points. Trend was no exceptional for broader indices, which were thrashed brutally. However, amidst sluggish trade, Aviation stocks were flying high after 49% FDI in aviation set to take off.  If few media reports were to be believed, the government is waiting for the session of Parliament to be over to announce the decision. Reacting to this were Kingfisher Airlines, Spicejet and Jet Airways rallied in the range of 2-4%. On the flip side, stocks from Auto, Metal and Teck counters topped the worst list of performers on BSE Sectoral chart.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,865.19, down by 205.29 points or 1.28%. The index has touched a high and low of 15,920.90 and 15,838.51 respectively.  There were only 4 stocks advancing against 26 declining one's on the index.

The broader indices too continued to reel under pressure; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices declined 1.00% and 0.76% respectively.

The major losing sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto down by 2.43%, Metal down by 1.60%, TECk down by 1.36%, Information Technology down by 1.32% and Capital Goods down by 1.31%.HUL up by 0.79%, SBI up by 0.16% and TCS up by 0.01% were the only gainers on the index.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 3.61%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 3.49%, Sterlite Industries down by 2.43%, Infosys down by 2.39% and Bajaj Auto down by 2.37% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, India's demand for gold plunged by 29% at 207.6 tonne in the first quarter of this year mainly on the back of new tax on gold jewellery, increased import duty and depreciating rupee, showed a World Gold Council (WGC) report. In terms of value, it declined by 3% at Rs 56,650 crore. The government's proposed 1% excise, 4% custom duty hike, which was rolled back following the 21-day nationwide strike by retailers also played its part in affecting the demand.

WGC Managing Director, India and Middle East, Ajay Mitra, while releasing the report said, 'the beginning of 2012 has been a challenging period for the Indian gold market. Despite all the challenges - price rise, economic slowdowns, rapid social change, gold retains its luster for consumers. We are optimistic that demand levels will normalize in the upcoming months as Indian consumers adjust to the new gold landscape.'

In the first quarter of 2011, the jewellery demand in volume terms also declined by 19% to 152 tonne. On the other hand, in value terms it increased by 10% y-o-y to a record high of Rs 41,480 crore. Further, in value terms, gold investment demand was at Rs 15,170 crore, a 27% y-o-y decline. Investment demand tonnage was down 46% at 55.6 tonne from the previous year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,806.80, lower by 63.40 points or 1.30%. The index has touched a high and low of 4,824.00 and 4,796.40 respectively. There were only 4 stocks advancing against 45 declining one's while one remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HUL up by 0.49%, Asian Paints up by 0.35%, Power Grid Corporation of India up by 0.29% and SBI up by 0.27%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 3.65%, Maruti Suzuki down by 3.47%, Reliance Infra down by 2.61%, Sterlite Industries down by 2.59% and Jindal Steel2.52% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian counters were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite plunged 1.06%, Hang Seng Index got obliterated by 2.75%, KLSE Composite declined 0.86%, Nikkei 225 got pummeled by 2.89%, Straits Times Index plummeted 1.77%, KOSPI Composite Index got battered down by3.12% and Taiwan Weighted slumped 2.66%.

Stock market in Indonesia remained closed on Friday owing to a public holiday.