(RTTNews) - A sell-off across global markets on worries about the seemingly never-ending Greek crisis triggered another steep fall in the Indian market on Friday. A rally in shares of Reliance Industries on the back of a favorable Supreme Court verdict in the gas-pricing dispute between the Ambani brothers also failed to lift the sagging market.
While Reliance Industries ended up 2.3%, shares of Anil-Ambani controlled Reliance Natural Resources plunged 23%. Other ADAG group companies like Reliance Communication, Reliance Capital, Reliance Mediaworks, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power also ended down between 3% and 7%.
Meanwhile, the apex court ruling on the RIL-RNRL gas dispute has nothing do with the gas supply dispute between Reliance Industries and NTPC, power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Friday. Shares of the state-run power producer ended down about a percent.
The 30-share Sensex average plunged to a low of 16,684 before recouping some of its loss to finish at 16,769, down 218 points or 1.29%, with 26 of its components ending in the red. The 50-share Nifty also fell by about 73 points and 1.43% and the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes lost around 3% each. Decliners outpaced gainers by 2332 to 537 on the BSE.
Growing risk aversion triggered heavy selling in high-beta realty shares. Parsvnath Developers, Orbit Corp, DLF, Unitech, HDIL, Indiabulls Real Estate and Sobha Developers fell by 1%-6%.
Concerns that global recovery could be hurt and demand for raw materials may weaken dragged metal stocks sharply lower. Hindustan Zinc tumbled 4.5%, Sterlite Industries declined 3.5%, Tata Steel lost 3% and NALCO ended down 1.5%.
In the banking sector, SBI, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank fell around 3% each. IT bellwether Infosys gave off 1.5%, while TCS and Wipro shed over 3% each. Tata Motors (down 6.4%), Jaiprakash Associates (down 2.7%), Grasim Industries (down 2.3%), Tata Power (down 1.7%), Bharti Airtel (down 1.6%) and ACC (down 1.3%) were the other prominent losers.
State-run oil marketing companies like HPCL, IOC and BPCL bucked the downward trend and ended up by 0.7%-2%, as crude oil prices lost over 10% this week. Lower crude prices will help oil retailers reduce their under recoveries on the sales of petrol, diesel, and kerosene meant for distribution under the public distributive system.
Shares of diversified business conglomerate Aditya Birla Nuvo rose 1.7% after the diversified business conglomerate reported a fourth-quarter consolidated net profit of Rs.180 crore versus a Rs.146-crore net loss in the year-ago quarter. Hindustan Unilever (up 1%), Mahindra & Mahindra (up 0.8%) and ONGC (up 0.2%) also closed in positive territory.
Elsewhere, the other Asian markets took cues from the Dow index which saw an intra-day decline of about 1000 points on Thursday. The key benchmark indexes in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan moved down between 1% and 3%, dragging the MSCI Asia Pacific Index to a 10-week low.
Lingering Greece’s debt woes and reports that Britain is facing its first hung parliament since 1974 dragged the European markets sharply lower for a fourth straight session Friday, while U.S. stock futures fluctuated ahead of the all-important jobs report for April.
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