Sensex falls 256 pts, Nifty ends below 8800; RIL loses 3%

03:30 pm Market closing: The market tumbled on first day of crucial Budget week. The Sensex slumped 256.30 points or 0.9 percent at 28975.11, and the Nifty slipped 78.65 points or 0.9 percent at 8754.95. About 1201 shares advanced, 1707 shares declined and 209 shares were unchanged.

Reliance fell 3 percent while GAIL, SBI, Tata Steel and Axis Bank were among the laggards in the Sensex. Among the gainers were M&M, TCS, Sesa Sterlite and NTPC.

03:00pm Lupin in News: Indian drugmaker Lupin said that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has raised concerns over production processes at the company's Pithampur plant in central India.

The FDA inspected the plant in January this year, after which it issued the company a so-called Form 483, listing six observations on the manufacturing processes at the plant, Lupin said in a statement, without giving details.

Lupin said it has received one drug approval and two site-transfer approvals from the same plant since the FDA audit.

In a Form 483, the FDA typically outlines conditions or practices at a drug-making unit that may cause the products made there to be in violation of the US agency's standard production requirements, reports Reuters.

2:45 pm Exclusive: Starting April 1, a category called "restructured assets" will not be available to banks. They have to classify stressed accounts as non performing loans (NPLs), and make higher provisions. But despite the March 31 deadline drawing near, banks are not rushing to restructure before the window closes.

There is no doubt that there is very high stress in the system when it comes to the bad loans. Infact most of the banks have reported about 6 percent rise in non-performing loans (NPLs) which is very worrying.

Last year the number of cases referred to the CDR cell was about 101 which was worth about Rs 1.3 lakh crore. However, this year so far, the number of cases that have been referred are only 25 which amounts to about Rs 23,000 crore. This figure is not even one fifth of the number of recasts that happened last year and although there is one more month to go for the March quarter to end, bankers are not expecting a rush in restructuring.

2:25 pm Market check: The market slips further dragged by oil & gas, pharma and FMCG stocks. The Sensex is down 175.61 points or 0.6 percent at 29055.80 and the Nifty slips 62.10 points or 0.7 percent at 8771.50. About 1178 shares have advanced, 1601 shares declined, and 220 shares are unchanged.

Reliance, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Axis Bank and HDFC are major laggards in the Sensex.

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The market erased morning gains amid consolidation. The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 30.08 points to 29201.33 and the 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 19.20 points to 8814.40.

However, the broader markets were still in green. The BSE Midcap was up 0.2 percent and Smallcap gained 0.3 percent. About 1361 shares have advanced, 1369 shares declined, and 213 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

Dhananjay Sinha, Emkay Global Financial Services says market needs to be looked at from the context of what was reported in the third quarter earnings and the recent political developments pertaining to Delhi election outcome and Bihar, which impinges on the positivity of the current government.

The market has been running up significantly higher implying that has become expensive just on the basis of downgrades. Therefore, one needs to be a bit circumspect of what the market is currently pricing and what can be evolved going forward with Budget in prime focus, Sinha adds.

Mahindra and Mahindra climbed 2 percent as the utility vehicle maker launched its XUV500 Xclusive edition at Rs 14.48 lakh ex-Mumbai today. Sesa Sterlite was up 3 percent as its subsidiary BALCO won Gare Palma IV/1 coal block at Rs 1,585 per tonne and the company also proposed its name change to Vedanta.

TCS and L&T gained 1.4 percent each while Reliance Industries, HDFC, Axis Bank, SBI, HUL and Bajaj Auto fell 0.7-1.3 percent.