Due to heavy selling in IT, oil and gas stocks, the market slipped further downwards this afternoon.

Weak IIP numbers and the negative response on the Asian and European markets contributed to the sell-off on the stock markets.  

Index for industrial production (IIP) fell marginally to 2% during December 2008 as against 2.4% (revised) in the previous month (November 2008).

Realty and Auto stocks were trading up and gained 2.34% and 1.32% respectively.

BSE Midcap index was up by 0.41%, whereas BSE Smallcap index gained 0.84%.

The Indian economic system will grow by 7% during the existing fiscal even as latest projections by worldwide agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that the economies of developing countries would shrink by 2%.

This was stated by Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the 81st annual general meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Speaking on this, Mr. Pranad said, “I am proud to say that in 2008-09 India will still grow by 7 per cent.”

The Apollo Hospitals Group in India has introduced a robot radiotherapy machine, Cyberknife in the Asia Pacific.

The new treatment, which uses real time image guidance technology and computer-controlled robotics to deliver a very little dosage of radiation to kill cancer cells by reducing the course of treatment to less than a week with sub millimeter accuracy.

This saves the surrounding healthy tissue while adjusting for patient and tumour movements during treatment.

Year 2007-08 had seen over a dozen debutant(e)s starting a journey into the Hindi film industry. And not shockingly, most of them come from ‘Filmi’ families, and Sonam Kapoor is one of them.

Sonam Kapoor, daughter of ace Bollywood superstar Anil Kapoor, burst upon Bollywood with a critically acclaimed though box office failure “Saawariya”.

Though the film failed to set audience ablaze, but the amount of stardom Sonam gathered was more than enough to get the promotion and make a presence in the directors’ ‘most wanted’ list.

Now, she is again back with a bang in 2009.

The key benchmark continued their downward trend today on account of losses in Asian markets and heavy selling action seen across the majority of sectors.

IT stocks were hammered badly, while stocks from the realty sector remained in the limelight.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap were up by 0.69% and 0.57% respectively.

Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and inflation data are awaited later during the day.

At 10:55 a.m., the benchmark Sensex was down 120.90 points to 9,497.64 levels. It also hit a high of 9,574.26 and a low of 9,486.52.

Stock analysts have maintained ‘buy’ rating on Reliance Capital stock with an intraday target of Rs 441.

According to them, interested traders can purchase the stock between Rs 426-428 with a strict stop loss of Rs 405. If the stock market remains on positive track, the stock pricing becomes more attractive, and reach above Rs 450.