Sensex falls 175 points on rupee woes, rising crude prices

Mumbai: The BSE Sensex erased all its early gains to end lower by 175 points in see-saw trade Tuesday, posting its fourth fall in five sessions due to widespread selling in auto, consumer, realty, oil and gas and banking stocks amid worries over weakening rupee and boiling crude oil prices.

Market sentiments were further dampened on unabated foreign fund outflows and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgrading outlook for world economy to 3.7 growth on Tuesday.

The Indian currency collapsed to a new lifetime low of 74.27 in intra-day trade, raising concerns on the macroeconomic front.

A mixed trend at other Asian markets and a lower opening in the euro zone too triggered selling on the domestic bourses here.

The 30-share Sensex opened higher at 34,651.82 points but slipped into the negative zone to hit a low of 34,233.50 before concluding at 34,299.47, recording a fall of 174.91 points, or 0.51 percent.

Similarly, the NSE Nifty after shuttling between 10,397.60 and 10,279.35 points, ended 47 points, or 0.45 percent, lower at 10,301.05.

Selling was more pronounced in consumer durables, auto, oil and gas, FMCG, realty, PSU and banking stocks that dragged the indices into the negative zone.

Among Sensex constituents, Tata Motors was the worst hit, plunging 13.40 percent to end at multi-year low of Rs 184.25, after the company-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported 12.3 percent decline in global sales in September.

Other laggards include Asian Paints falling 3.95 percent, Maruti Suzuki 3.07 percent, HUL 2.73 percent, Bharti Airtel 2.29 percent, Bajaj Auto 1.85 percent, ITC 1.81 percent, RIL 1.58 percent, ICICI Bank 1.50 percent, M&M 1.36 percent, SBI 1.26 percent, NTPC 1.22 percent, Axis Bank 0.67 percent and HDFC Bank 0.17 percent.

In contrast, Adani Ports emerged as the top gainer by rising 4.52 percent, followed by HDFC falling 2.59 percent.

Vedanta, Tata Steel, Coal india, Yes Bank, Sun Pharma, Wipro, TCS, L&T, Infosys, IndusInd Bank and Kotak Bank too showed strength, gaining up to 2.44 percent.

Shares of oil marketing companies such as HPCL, BPCL and IOC were down up to 4.20 percent as global crude oil prices again rose on reports of decline in crude export from Iran.

Sectorally, the BSE consumer durables index emerged worst performer by falling 3.91 percent, followed by auto at 2.62 percent, oil and gas 1.92 percent, FMCG 1.68 percent, PSU 1.19 percent, realty 1.06 percent, power 0.62 percent, bankex 0.47 percent, infrastructure 0.41 percent, capital goods 0.25 percent.

However, metal, healthcare, teck and IT indices managed to close in the positive zone by rising up to 1.01 percent.

Elsewhere in rest of Asia, Japan's NIkkei fell 1.32 percent, Straight Time shed 0.49 percent, while Shanghai rose 0.17 percent.

In the euro zone, FTSE, CAC and DAX were little changed in their late morning deals.