Morning Bell !!!.........The Indian rupee crossed the 53 to the dollar today - fresh all-time low.

Indian Markets

The Sensex dropped about 100 points in opening trade following negative global cues. But it managed to recover some of its early losses soon after. The fall was after the reports that European Union may face downgrade from rating agencies. The Sensex was trading at 15,813.96, down 56.39 points amid volatility. Meanwhile, the Nifty slipped 18.7 points to 4,745.90.

US & European Markets

U.S. stocks tumbled in a broad sell-off Monday amid growing investor doubt that Europe's debt crisis will actually be resolved, and a sales warning from chipmaker Intel. Dow Jones slid 163 points, or 1.3%, while S&P 500 lost 19 points, or 1.5%, and Nasdaq dropped 35 points, or 1.3%. Earlier, all three major indexes had declined about 2%.

European stocks closed sharply lower. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 1.5%, DAX in Germany dropped 3.1% and France's CAC 40 fell 2.3%.

Asian Markets

Today all the Asian indices are trading in the red with Nikkei and Kospi trading lower by 1.5% each while Hang Seng is down 1.2%. Shanghai and Taiwan are down by 1% and 0.9% respectively. Strait Times is down 0.7%. As per IST 9.04 am SGX Nifty is trading lower by 42 points.

Currencies

The Indian rupee tumbled to its all-time low as jittery global investors pulled out funds amid fast deteriorating economic health with the index of industrial production contracting more than 5%, and higher than reported trade deficit after government admitted to $9 billion of inflated export figures. The Indian rupee crossed the 53 to the dollar today - fresh all-time low. It was trading at 53.17 to the dollar, down 33 paise. It fell 82 paise to 70.19 an euro.

Commodities

Among the metals, Copper fell the most 2.3% while Aluminium and Zinc lost 1.8% and 1.5% respectively. Nickel fell by 0.3%. Oil for January delivery slipped $1.64 to settle at $97.77 a barrel. Gold futures for February delivery fell $48.60 to settle at $1,668.20 an ounce.

Outlook

Today, the Indian market is likely to open in the red following weak global cues and move downwards during the day. Among the sectoral indices, Banking and IT stocks could underperform.

Sources- hdfcsec