Sensex falls for 3rd straight day, ends 98 points down, Nifty settles below 7,750; ITC gains

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty fell for the third consecutive day on Friday on account of weak European cues coupled with tighter P-Note norms. Sensex closed 97.82 points down at 25301.90 while Nifty 50 index settled 33.70 points down at 7,749.70.

Traders also remained cautious on Friday over the possibility of an interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve as early as June

In the 50-share index, ITC, Adani Ports, Tata Power, Idea Cellular, ONGC gained between 1.39 per cent and 4.10 per cent. On the other hand, Lupin, Ambuja Cement, ICICI Bank, BPCL and Reliance Industries shares slid between 1.86 per cent and 9.04 per cent.

Barring the BSE FMCG index (up 0.19 per cent), rest all other sectoral indices on BSE ended the day in red. The BSE Realty index, BSE Healthcare index and BSE Capital Goods index slipped 1.42 per cent, 1.39 per cent and 0.95 per cent, respectively.

SEBI on Thursday made rules tougher on P-Notes, making mandatory for all end-users of these overseas instruments to follow anti-money laundering law in India and asked their issuers to report any suspected breach immediately.

Among day’s major market moving events, crude oil prices continued to rise owing to expectations of supply tightening following turmoil in Nigeria, shale bankruptcies in the United States, and crisis in Venezuela. Brent crude was seen trading at $49.02 a barrel, up 0.43% or 21 cents while US Crude was up 29 cents, 0.6 per cent at $48.45 per barrel.

Shares of low cost airline – Spicejet slipped more than 10 per cent intraday on BSE even after the carrier reported numbers almost in line with market expectations. Spicejet reported a net profit of Rs. 73 crore in Q4FY16 against net profit of Rs 80 crore in the same quarter the previous fiscal. The carrier reported a one-time expense of Rs. 173 crores on stabilisation and reliability of its fleet which impacted the bottom line significantly in this quarter.

Shares of Gujarat Pipavav Port corrected by more than 3.7 per cent after the company reported a fall of 25.49 per cent in standalone profits at Rs 49.83 crore for Q4FY16. The company had reported a profit of Rs 66.88 crore for the same quarter the previous fiscal.

Asian equity markets ended mostly higher on Friday, as oil prices rebounded ahead of US rig count data and the dollar held gains against the yen on the eve of a G7 meeting, with issues such as money laundering, tax evasion and currency volatility high on the agenda. Chinese shares eked out modest gains after China said it would allocate 27.64 billion yuan ($4.23 billion) from the central budget to cut steel and coal capacity. Japanese shares reversed early losses to end higher as a weaker yen boosted exporters’ shares.