Market sheds another 204 points

The market slipped further as selling backed by substantial intra-day volatility continued for the second straight session with the Sensex slipping sharply in mid-morning trades. The Sensex witnessed a wild intra-day swing of 229 points in the first half of the trading session and the index crashed sharply to the day’s low of 13337 after touching an early high of 13570. Although some of the losses were erased on stock-specific gains, the Sensex closed with losses of 1.50% or 204 points at 13362. The Nifty declined by 61 points to close at 3850.

The market breadth was expectedly negative. Of the 2,707 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,712 stocks declined, 952 stocks advanced and 43 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Bankex, the BSE PSU index and the BSE CG index shed over 2% each. The other sectoral indices also closed in negative territory.

Except Wipro and ITC the rest of the Sensex stocks witnessed steep falls. BHEL tumbled 4.66% at Rs2,144, Reliance Communication lost 3.72% at Rs407, ICICI Bank declined 3.27% at Rs883, SBI slumped 3.20% at Rs1,137, ONGC slipped 3.06% at Rs890 and Dr Reddy’s fell 2.95% at Rs775. HDFC at Rs1,527, Reliance Energy at Rs505, NTPC at Rs133, Gujarat Ambuja at Rs137, Bharti Airtel at Rs613, TCS at Rs1,234, L&T at Rs1,409, Grasim at Rs2,786, Ranbaxy at Rs411, HDFC Bank at Rs999 and Infosys at Rs2,169 dropped 1-2% each.

The banking stocks fared badly on the bourses. Canara Bank dropped 5.72% at Rs262, Oriental Bank declined 3.69% at Rs214, Allahabad Bank lost 2.11% at Rs88 and Indian Overseas Bank slipped 1.63% at Rs108. Consumer goods stocks also witnessed heavy selling pressure. Kalpataru, Carborundum, Alstom Project, Thermax and Triveni Engineering were down 2-4% each.

Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision made its debut on the BSE. The stock touched an intra-day high of Rs248 before profit taking dragged it to a low of Rs185. The company had sold the shares at Rs160 in the initial public offering. The stock finally closed at Rs227. Over 1.60 crore shares were traded on the BSE.

Over 4.70 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Shree Ashtavinayak (1.60 crore shares), Pentium Infratech (1.58 crore shares), Zee News (1.36 crore shares) and Vishal Export (83 lakh shares).