Re at 11-month low; Sensex dips 150 pts

Rise in USD puts pressure on equity market

Continuing its free fall for the fifth straight session,the rupee on Monday slumped by 26 paise to hit a new 11-month low of 56.76 on fag-end dollar buying and capital outflows from local equities. Forex dealers said bleeding domestic stocks and a weakening bond market firming up the dollar in turn,weighed upon the rupee.

Foreign institutional investors pulled out Rs 86.66 crore from local stocks today,as per provisional BSE data.

Capital outflows by FIIs,coupled with weakening stocks also marred the rupee sentiment, said Srinivasa Raghavan,executive vice-president treasury at private-sector Dhanlaxmi Bank.

Meanwhile,falling for the second straight day,the BSE benchmark Sensex today dropped by almost 150 points to end at one-month low level of 19,610.48 as oil and power sector shares tripped on weak manufacturing output signals.

Similarly,the NSE 50-share CNX Nifty dropped by 46.65 points at 5,939.30. MCX-SX flagship index,SX40,also ended 97 points,or 0.83 per cent,lower at 11,634.91 points.

The sharp rise in dollar over last one month is actually what is putting pressure on equity markets. Further,the weak manufacturing PMI data too added pressure today, said Milan Bavishi,Head Research,Inventure Growth amp; Securities.

Auto stocks fell as auto companies reported weak sales for the month just gone by. Shares of two-wheeler makers declined as OMCs raised petrol rate,traders said.

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A downtrend in the Asian region and lower opening in Europe further influenced the market sentiment,they added.

Sectorally,the Oil and Gas sector suffered the most by losing 1.34 per cent,followed by power index 0.99 per cent,Auto sector index 0.79 per cent.

Infy jumps on Murthys return

Mumbai: Disappointed at sub-par financial performance in the recent past and a weak outlook for the future,the markets cheered NR Narayana Murthys return as the executive chairman of Infosys with immediate effect. The share price of the company rose by up to 9 per cent on Monday to hit Rs 2,600 per share before closing the day at Rs 2,514 with a gain of 4.4 per cent at the end of the day.

The shares rose even as the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange fell by 150 points or 0.8 per cent to close the day at 19,610.5.

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It was the first trading day since the company announced the return of Indias IT czar at the helm of affairs at Infosys which had seen its shares tumble by 18.3 per cent on April 12,2013 when the company announced a below expected result.

While foreign institutional investors in the company had been demanding to bring Murthy back,the stock had a reaction in response to the same. Market experts however are still waiting for Murthy to make his announcement on his plans of how he intends to take the company ahead. ENS