In the wake of the Dow Jones index sinking about 250 points last night, the Asian markets and the Indian markets were in the red in morning trade on expected lines.

Much would depend on how the European markets respond to the downgrade of some of the European banks, along with a chunk of major US banks, by rating agency Moody's yesterday.

Apart from US banks such as Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, European outfits such as Barclays, BNP Paribas etc have also been downgraded. However, it was said that some of the US banks' stocks rallied after market hours yesterday.

The downgrade came after the US markets closed yesterday though there are reports that the markets smelt the impending Moody's action which led the the free fall.

Though the BSE Sensex is down by about 85 points in the morning trade, it is not as if there was selling across the 30-stock Sensex. Only three stocks felt some selling pressure - SBI, Infosys, HDFC and and even here, the price erosion is very small compared to the stock prices.

SBI was down by Rs 13.95 to Rs 2,164, Infosys shed Rs 33.95 to slip to Rs 2,458.25 and HDFC lost Rs 10.10 to Rs 637.60. But the other losers among the 21 stocks that are in the red and the 9 gainers all were up or down by less than Rs 10.

With the INR threatening to breach the Rs 57-mark against the US dollar, the Indian investors seem to be having a handful.

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