News Tonight

A downgrade of Italy and Greece's financial system witnessed worldwide reactions turn negative.

All Asian bourses were ruling deep in the negative.

The Indian stock markets also belled on a lower note with the Sensex declining 162 points to 18,163.

The Nifty dropped 54 points to trade at 5,431 at 9.44 am.

Deven Choksey of K R Choksey Securities stated that there is insignificant input from investors and no fresh triggers to pick up the stock markets.

"The Nifty is likely to trade in a range of 5,400-5,700 and only when 5,400 is broken, there will be fresh shorts," Choksey added.

Mr. Somil Mehta of Sharekhan projected the broad-based Nifty to come down to 5,200-5,000 levels.

"The charts are negative. The benchmark indices have broken crucial trendlines and all momentum indicators are pointing to sell," Mr. Mehta said.

On the 30-share index BSE Sensex, only 3 out of 30 scrips were ruling on a high note.

ITC surged 1.35 percent. BHEL and Bharti also witnessed some buying action.

Tata Motors was the major loser, dropping more than 2%. HDFC also slumped more than 2% during early trade.

Among individual scrips, Sesa Goa fell more than 4.5% after the serious fraud investigation office (SFIO) asked for action against the firm for over and under-invoicing of export/import of more than Rs 1,000 crore.

The overall breadth of the market was feeble with only 23%stocks progressing on the BSE 500.