Sensex slips amid listless trading

The market exhibited considerable strength in the first half of the trading session. The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 12 points and moved up to touch the day’s high of 14287. The trend in the market was cautious, as today was the expiry day of the February series in the derivatives segment. After exhibiting range-bound moves, the Sensex moved up in the afternoon on sustained buying in technology and oil stocks. Towards the close, the market saw heavy selling pressure and erased most of the gains accrued during the day to touch an intra-day low of 13978. The Sensex finally ended the session with losses of 167 points at 14021. The Nifty also ended in the red at 4040, down 56 points.

The breadth of the market was extremely weak. Of the 2,684 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,805 stocks declined, 817 stocks advanced and 62 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices ended in the red on the BSE. The BSE Bankex shed 2.48% at 6999, the BSE HC index declined 2.10% at 3708 and the BSE Auto index was down 1.86% at 5459.

Select heavyweights declined sharply on substantial selling pressure. Grasim tanked 5.18% at Rs2,416, ACC dropped 4.41% at Rs964, Ranbaxy fell 3.75% at Rs368, Gujarat Ambuja Cement shed 3.35% at Rs127, Hero Honda lost 3.21% at Rs716, HDFC Bank declined 2.56% at Rs989 and Dr Reddy's dipped 2.55% at Rs711. SBI, Maruti Udyog, Cipla, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Wipro shed around 2-3% each. Among the select gainers Reliance Communications, TCS, Reliance Industries, NTPC and Tata Steel closed with moderate gains.

Several pharma and banking stocks were battered. Sterling Bioteck tumbled 6.04% at Rs162, Biocon slipped 5.58% at Rs455 and Glenmark Pharma shed 3.13% at Rs592. Among the banking stocks Allahabad Bank declined 4.29% at Rs78, Bank of Baroda fell 4.11% at Rs216 and Bank of India was down 4.05% at Rs166. Kotak Bank, Union Bank, Punjab National Bank and Oriental Bank slipped over 3% each.

Over 23.03 lakh Ashok Leyland shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Hindalco (20.85 lakh shares), SAIL (19.24 lakh shares), IDBI (17.99 lakh shares) and HDFC Bank (17.53 lakh shares).

Value-wise HDFC Bank registered a turnover of Rs178 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs145 crore), Tata Steel (Rs80 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs62 crore) and Maruti Udyog (Rs61 crore).