The market ended lower, taking cues from European markets. The Sensex settled at 16,617, down 163 points (1%) while the Nifty ended at 4,987, down 47 points (1%). The indices were range-bound in the positive zone in the morning session.
 
However, a sell-off was triggered in the afternoon session after the European benchmarks pared their gains, dragging the domestic indices into the red.

Asian markets ended higher. Key benchmark indices in China, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Hong Kong were up 0.09% to 0.83%. Taiwan's and Singapore's main indices fell 0.08% and 0.19%, respectively.

US stocks were down on Monday (7th June), taking the S&P 500 to its lowest close in seven months. The Dow was down 115 points (1.1%) to 9,816. The S&P 500 was down 14 points (1.3%) to 1,050. The Nasdaq tumbled 45.2 points (2%) to 2,174.

The Bank of Japan has kept interest rates near zero and had outlined last month a new loan programme aimed at encouraging commercial banks to lend more to industries with growth potential. 

Japanese bank lending marked its biggest annual fall in nearly five years in May, as companies were reluctant to increase capital spending. Bank lending fell 2% in May from a year earlier, dropping for the sixth straight month and marking the biggest annual decline since July 2005.

Back home, the government on Monday evening deferred the hike in fuel prices. The fuel subsidy is seen at $697 million this year, below last year's $3.4 billion.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that inflation is likely to ease with the monsoon; however, the central bank will tighten the monetary policy in its quarterly review next month. It has played down any concern regarding food prices.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers, offloading stocks worth Rs242 crore. Domestic intuitional investors bought stocks worth Rs41 crore. 

The monsoon has advanced to some parts of the central Arabian Sea, most parts of coastal Karnataka and some parts of south interior Karnataka. It is expected to advance further in the next couple of days. 

The board of KIC Metaliks (up 1.7%) has accorded an approval for pursuing power and mining businesses and enhancing the borrowing limits of the company from Rs200 crore to Rs500 crore. 

Alstom and Schneider Electric today proceeded with the closing of the transaction with Areva for the acquisition of Areva T&D (up 1.5%), its transmission and distribution business, after obtaining the approvals of the French authorities. A consortium agreement was signed by the two partners in November 2009 for the purpose of this joint acquisition. The price paid for Areva T&D's shares amounted to €2.29 billion.

Neha International (up 4%) has acquired 10,000 acres of land in Ethiopia through its wholly-owned subsidiary. This is part of its diversification into agriculture. The company expects to cultivate this land in the current kharif season.

Kyushu Railway Company (JR Kyushu), a major railroad company in Japan and Patni Computer Systems (down 1.6%) have signed a joint venture pact between JR Kyushu System Solutions Inc, the IT systems arm of the Japanese company.

The new company christened JR Kyushu Patni Systems Inc, is aimed at providing high quality and cost effective IT and product engineering services to the Japanese enterprise market.