The markets on Wednesday opened in red with Sensex at 59,660.31, down by 66.7 points and Nifty slipped by 6.40 points at 17,653.35. Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were the top gainers whereas Maruti, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bank, IndusInd Bank and ITC were the top losers.
The stocks of ICICI Securities, Mastek, Tata Communications, Alok Industries, Artson Engineering, Citadel Realty and Developers, G G Engineering, Gujarat Hotels and Stampede Capital will be in focus as the companies are announcing the results for the last quarter today.
Markets on Tuesday
The markets on Tuesday closed in red for the second consecutive day. Sensex was down by 183.74 points at 59,727.01, whereas Nifty fell 46.60 points at 17,660.20. The top losers included Power Grid Corporation, Adani Enterprises, UltraTech Cement, Apollo Hospitals and Reliance Industries. Divi's Labs, HCL Technologies, Nestle India, Cipla and IndusInd Bank were among the gainers.
FMCG, infra and power sectors were down and information technology, metal and PSU banks closed around 0.5 per cent higher.
Global Markets
The S&P 500 showed slight gains as the technology sector went up countering poor quarterly reports from Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson. S&P 500 went up 3.55 points to 4,154.87, however Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 10.55 points to 33,976.63 and Nasdaq Composite fell 4.31 points to 12,153.41.
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Wednesday with Nifty futures on the Singaporean Exchange were trading at 17,707 down by 14.50 points and Tokyo share flat with Nikkei 225 index down 8.10 points to 28,650.73 and Topix index up 0.31 points to 2,041.20.
Windfall tax revision
The special additional excise duty on crude petroleum has been increased to Rs 6,400 per tonn from April 19, whereas the excise duty on Diesel has been cut to nil. The windfall tax on petrol and ATF is expected to continue at Nil.
Oil prices
The Oil prices on Wednesday rose due to strong Chinese economic data, strengthening fuel demand and decreasing US crude inventories. Brent crude futures went up 7 cents to $84.84 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate US crude jumped by 3 cents to $80.89 per barrel.
Rupee
Indian rupee opened at 82.10 per dollar lower against the previous close of 82.04.
