Mumbai: The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed with moderate losses on Wednesday, weighed down by banks, technology and ONGC. However, the recovery in Reliance Industries, ITC and L&T, and upside in auto stocks & Bharti Airtel helped the market trim losses in the last couple of hours of trade.
Overall it remained a volatile session ahead of April F&O expiry on Thursday. The BSE benchmark fell 56 points or 0.33 per cent, to close at 17,151.29 and the NSE benchmark declined 20.65 points or 0.4 per cent to 5,202.
Today in the afternoon trade, the Sensex shed as much as 188 points intraday and the Nifty dropped well below the 5200 level after the foreign rating agency Standard & Poor's revised Indian outlook to negative, citing investment & economic growth slowed, and current account deficit widened.
Agency even expects the Indian government to face headwind in implementing policy measures to improve its fiscal and macroeconomic parameters in the near future, given the current unfavorable political environment. However, the firm affirmed its 'BBB-' long-term and 'A-3' short-term sovereign credit ratings on India.
But, the recovery by the market towards the end of market indicated that it priced in the news. Even the upside in European markets helped Indian equities recover; Germany's DAX was up 1.23 per cent and France's CAC gained 1.85 per cent while Britain's FTSE rose 0.2 per cent. The Dow Jones futures went up 67 points.
Back home, Wipro, country's third largest software services provider by market cap tanked over 7 per cent after the company reported muted guidance for the April-June quarter. Its net profit for the January-March quarter went up 1.7 per cent QoQ to Rs 1,481 crore while revenues fell 0.45 per cent to Rs 9,836 crore. However, the company said its IT services revenues would be around USD 1.52-1.55 billion for April-June quarter, which is just 0.6 per cent higher than Q4FY12.
Top IT services exporter Tata Consultancy Services dropped 2 per cent whereas rival Infosys recovered to end flat.
Country's largest lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank were down 1 per cent and 0.77 per cent, respectively. Housing finance company HDFC was up 0.6 per cent whereas HDFC Bank surged 1 per cent.
State-owned oil & gas producer ONGC declined 1.2 per cent while index heavyweight Reliance Industries rose just 0.2 per cent.
Capital goods company Bharat Heavy Electricals lost over 2 per cent whereas Larsen & Toubro gained 0.5 per cent.
Auto stocks witnessed buying interest ahead of April sales numbers next week. Top two-wheeler maker Hero Motocorp jumped 2 per cent. Maruti Suzuki, top car maker and Tata Motors, country's largest commercial vehicle producer were up 1.23 per cent and 0.77 per cent, respectively
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel rallied 2.25 per cent after falling in previous two sessions due to TRAI recommendations.
The broader markets ended 0.5 per cent lower on Wednesday. Declining shares outnumbered advancing by 990 to 446 on the National Stock Exchange.
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