The market was hit by substantial selling pressure and the indices tumbled by over 2.90% each at the close in a choppy trading session. The Sensex opened slightly above its previous close at 13799, but immediately slipped into the red amid frenzied selling to touch the day's low of 13262, down 540 points from the day's high. Although the market remained in negative territory throughout the trading session, the Sensex pared some losses and wrapped up the session with losses of 400 points at 13,399 while the Nifty shed 112 points to close at 3849.
The market breadth was extremely weak. Of the 2,611 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,977 stocks declined, 592 stocks advanced and 42 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices slipped sharply. The BSE Bankex dropped 6.43%, the BSE Metal index shed 4.00%, the BSE PSU index declined 3.88%, the BSE CD index dropped 3.18%, the BSE Auto index was down 2.76% and the BSE CG index declined 2.36%. The remaining indices were down 1-2% each.
Most of the index heavyweights witnessed considerable correction. Among the banking stocks SBI tumbled 8.18% at Rs1,243, ICICI Bank dropped 6.54% at Rs819 and HDFC Bank lost 4.70% at Rs1,034. Among the other major losers ACC slumped 6.54% at Rs1,036, Tata Steel slipped 6.01% at Rs453, NTPC shed 5.80% at Rs143, Reliance Energy lost 5.23% at Rs526, Bharti Airtel fell 4.12% at Rs607, Reliance Communication crumbled 3.93% at Rs430 and BHEL dipped 3.90% at Rs2,533. The other front-line stocks lost between 2% and 3% each. Select counters, however, bucked the downtrend and ended with gains. Asian Paints advanced 1.83% at Rs715 and Bharat Electricals gained 0.47% at Rs1,215.
Blue Bird was listed on the BSE at Rs109. Hectic activity saw the counter lose momentum and touch a low of Rs92. The counter closed at Rs95 on strong volumes of over 53.05 lakh shares on the BSE.
Over 93.62 lakh Reliance Communication shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Steel (44.42 lakh shares), Zee Telefilms (26.49 lakh shares), Allahabad Bank (21.58 lakh shares) and Adani Enterprises (20.82 lakh shares).