Andrew L Dcunha

Mumbai, Oct 5: The BSE sensex continued its southbound journey during the highly volatile trade today on sustained selling by investors. Weakness in the banking space weighed on the sentiments for the second day, with two major banks — ICICI Bank down by 2.72% and SBI down by 4%. its lowest since August 2009.  Investors booked profits near intermediate resistance levels, which led the markets to end lower. The Sensex, which has lost 832 points in last three sessions fell 72 points to close at 15792 a level last seen on February 5, 2010. and the Nifty settled at 4751, down by 21 points.  Nifty closed just above its technical support level of 4750.  

Shares of SBI were witnessing profit booking after ratings agency Moody's downgraded its financial strength rating to 'D+' from 'C -' on account of the bank's low Tier-I capital ratio and deteriorating asset quality.    A day after downgrading its rating of public sector lender SBI's financial strength, Global credit rating agency Moody's has reaffirmed its C- rating for India's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank .The agency was all praise for the private lender. It said the ratings indicate solid financial soundness of ICICI Bank. It also said it reflects the progress made by the bank in consolidating its balance sheet.

In all, 16 Sensex stocks closed with losses, while 14 ended with gains. The banking, consumer durable, refinery, metal, auto and power sector indices dipped, while a gain in healthcare, realty, FMCG and IT sectors rose and saved the market from a major fall.  
Banks led European stock markets higher Wednesday as hopes for a coordinated move to recapitalize the troubled sector outweighed worries over a downgrade of Italy by Moody’s Investors Service. The gains were driven by hopes that European finance ministers are going to act, and act fast.  The French CAC rose 2.6 the German DAX  climbed 2.8%.

Andrew L D Cunha, Managing Director, WinWin Fin  Advisory Pvt. Ltd. Mangalore. Email:  finadvisoryltd@yahoo.com