Market drifts lower; Sensex breaks below 28000

Moneycontrol Bureau

12:30 pm: Shares hold on to some of their losses, and are now trading with a 0.2 percent cut.

MNC stocks are trading lower, after witnessing a robust rally recently, after Sebi came out with fresh regulations aimed at easing de-listing norms. However, according to some, the new norms are unclear and may make the process even tougher. Read an interview on the subject with market expert Anil Jindal.

The regulator also tightened norms with respect to insider trading but moneycontrol.com editor Santosh Nair believes the new regulations may not be enough.

12:00 pm: Equities started drifting lower in afternoon trade, after moving around the flat line for early part of the day.

At the time of this writing, the Sensex came off 58 points to trade 27,978 while Nifty lost 11 points to reach 8,370. Midcaps, however, were resilient -- trading flat.

For the second day running, the high-beta trade, which has paid off well during the recent rally that saw benchmarks race to fresh highs, appeared to be unwinding.

Among decliners, capital goods was off 1.2 percent, while metals, oil & gas and utilities were down between 0.4 percent to 0.7 percent.

While ‘defensives’ IT and pharma were providing support the index with a 0.4 percent and 0.7 percent rise respectively – the former benefiting from a fall in the rupee below 62 per US dollar.

In news-driven movers, ING Vysya Bank surged 11.7 percent to hit a record high amid speculation it would be acquired by Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 6.2 percent). Brokerage Nomura said such the acquisition would make for a strategic fit for Kotak.

Indiabulls Securities was up 9.9 percent after its arm acquired India Land and Properties for a consideration of Rs 600 crore.

While stocks such as Amtek Auto, Bosch, Engineers India, Strides Arcolabs and Wockhardt gained between 0.7 percent and 4.9 percent after they were added to the futures and options segment by the NSE.

Sugar stocks declined sharply with leaders Balrampur, Shree Renuka and Bajaj Hindusthan losing between 2.2 percent and 4.1 percent, after a much anticipated government move to provide export sops did not come through.