Sensex down on weak Asian cues, banks drag

The market has opened on a tepid note with the Nifty sinking below 6200. The Nifty is down 13.90 points at 6187.95. The Sensex is down 48.98 points at 20805.94.

Banks are dragging the indices with ICICI Bank and SBI as major laggards. Other losers are Bajaj Auto ONGC and M&M.

On the gaining side are Sesa Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, Infosys , NTPC and Jindal Steel.

[caption id=“attachment_1103141” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]

The rupee fell 8 paise in early trade on Wednesday to 62.43 per dollar as against previous day’s closing of 62.35 per dollar.

The dollar index has slipped 0.5 percent in early trade. And the yen enjoys a small reprieve as investors locked in profits ahead of major risk events including US jobs data due later in the week.

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According to NS Venkatesh of IDBI Bank, the rupee is expected to trade weaktoday and will take cues from weak global equity markets.

“The range for the day is seen between 62.20-62.50/USD,” he adds.

Global markets extended losses as uncertainty continued to build over the US Federal Reserve’s next step. Dow lost almost 100 points and European markets closed at six week lows. Asia too is trading weak with the Nikkei down over 1 percent in early trade.

Stocks in news:

Telecom stocks have gained. Bharti is up 1.2 percent, RComm up 0.9 percent and Idea is up 0.4 percent. The Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, today approved the much-awaited guidelines on telecom M&As and decided on the quantum of 2G spectrum to be auctioned in January 2014.

ICICI Bank is the top Nifty/Sensex loser, down around 1.5 pct