Sensex recovers early losses, still down 399 pts in late morning

Market benchmark Sensex pared some of the early losses on mild buying in IT stocks, but was still down 400 points in late morning deals, tracking heavy selling in global markets following re-emergence of US Fed rate hike concerns.

Selling was seen in realty, banking, auto, capital goods, finance, FMCG, power and metal sectors, while only IT and Teck stocks were trading in the green.

The broader market too depicted weakness with the BSE Mid-Cap and BSE Small-Cap indices down 2.23 per cent and 1.58 per cent, respectively.

The 30-share Sensex resumed sharply lower at 28,481.09 and drifted further to 28,251.31. It was quoting at 28,397.76 at 1100 hrs, showing a fall of 399.49 points or 1.39 per cent.

The NSE’s 50-share Nifty was down by 132.65 points or 1.50 percent at 8,734.05.

Major losers were, Adani Ports 3.70 per cent, Axis Bank 3.67 per cent, Hero MotoCorp 3.50 per cent, Tata Steel 3.41 per cent, Tata Motors 3.10 per cent, Bajaj Auto 3.10 per cent, SBI 3.07 per cent, Larsen 2.72 per cent, M&M 2.63 per cent, ICICI Bank 2.59 per cent, GAIL 2.54 per cent, HDFC 2.06 per cent and ITC 1.84 per cent.

However, Infosys rose 1.74 per cent followed by Reliance 0.70 per cent, TCS 0.35 per cent and Wipro 0.34 per cent.

Meanwhile, Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 315.24 crore on Friday, as per provisional data.

Overseas, Asian market plunged as investors were spooked by rising bond yields and talk the Federal Reserve might be serious about lifting US interest rates as early as next week.

US stocks tumbled last Friday, as investor nervousness increased following a nuclear test by North Korea and Federal Reserve officials’ comments lifted rate hike bets.