Oil prices for June 2008 delivery fell 6 cents to $123.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange today, 8 May 2008, in Asia after jumping to a record of $123.93 a barrel yesterday, 7 May 2008.
Asian markets were trading mostly in red today, 8 May 2008. Key indices in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were down by 0.50% to 2.26%. However, China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.95%.
US markets suffered sharp losses on Wednesday, 7 May 2008, on worries about inflation and higher interest rates as oil jumped to a record. Financials stocks took a beating on concerns that new disclosure requirements for investment banks will limit their profits. The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 206.48 points, or 1.59%, to 12,814.35. The Nasdaq Composite index fell 44.82 points, or 1.80%, to 2,438.49. The S&P 500 shed 26 points at 1,393.
At 10:20 IST, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 208.94 points or 1.21% at 17,130.37. The index lost 228.13 points at day’s low of 17,111.18, hit in early trade.
The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 57.6 points or 1.12% at 5077.90.
The market breadth was poor on BSE with 515 shares advancing as compared to 1133 stocks that declined. 35 stocks remained unchanged.
The BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.83% to 7,141.78 and BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.76% to 8,660.42.
India’s largest private sector firm by market capitalisation and oil refiner Reliance Industries fell 0.13% at Rs 2678.80.
India’s largest private sector bank by assets ICICI Bank fell 2.49% to Rs 896.
India’s largest engineering and construction firm by revenue Larsen & Toubro fell 1.36% to Rs 2946.
The top Sensex losers were, Satyam Computer (down 3.13% at Rs 474), Infosys Technologies (down 2.99% at Rs 1788.15), Wipro (down 2.83% at Rs 485), Jaiprakash Associates (down 2.55% at Rs 267.80), HDFC Bank (down 2.16% at Rs 1509.45) and DLF (down 1.62% at Rs 640.45).
Top Sensex gainers were, Reliance Communication (up 1.61% at Rs 548.95), Bharti Airtel (up 0.88% at Rs 823), ACC (up 0.90% at Rs 743.80), Hindustan Unilever (up 0.36% at Rs 252), Ambuja Cements (up 0.31% at Rs 111.50).
Aishwarya Telecom was the most active stock on BSE in terms of turnover. The stocks was down 3.63% at Rs 87.55 on a turnover of Rs 43.32 crore.
Aishwarya Telecom had debuted on Wednesday at Rs 50.10 on BSE, a premium of 43.14% over its issue price of Rs 35. It settled at Rs 90.85 on BSE, a huge premium of 159.57% over its issue price.
Back home, the 30-share BSE Sensex fell 33.70 points or 0.19% at 17,339.31 and the broader based S&P CNX Nifty slipped 9.15 points or 0.18% at 5135.50, yesterday 7 May 2008.
As per provisional data, foreign funds bought shares worth a net Rs 88.30 crore yesterday, 7 May 2008. Domestic funds bought shares worth a net Rs 234.83 crore on that day.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 232.94 crore in the futures & options segment yesterday 7 May 2008. They were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 156.68 crore and bought index options worth Rs 48.59 crore. They were net sellers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 170.83 crore and bought stock options worth Rs 45.98 crore.