HOW MARKET FARED

Will the bear onslaught continue?

Bears continued their reign as domestic markets continue to get infected by global cues. Bulls were down & out as the benchmark index fell over 450 points and NSE Nifty declined over 150 points led by heavy selling in heavy weights like L&T, RIL, Infosys and Tata Steel. The BSE Mid-Cap and the small cap indexes also participated in the downfall dragging the benchmark Sensex to hit a low of 12344.44. Finally, the 30-share benchmark Sensex slumped 417 points to close at 12415. NSE Nifty fell 150 points to close at 3576.

L&T declined by over 5% to Rs1383. The board of Directors of the company has announced that they would consider interim dividend on 13th March. The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs1462 and a low of Rs1375 and has recorded volumes of over 12,00,000 shares on NSE.

JSW Steel was down over 8.5% to Rs430. The company posted a 30% growth in crude steel production. The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs468 and a low of Rs422 and recorded volumes of over 13,00,000 shares on NSE.

Technology stocks also have been among the major losers. Mid-Cap stocks were among the major losers, Rolta dipped over 13% to Rs283; Polaris was down 9% to Rs157 and NIIT Ltd dropped over 7.5% to Rs693. Wipro, Infosys and Satyam Computer were the major losers among the heavy weights.

Power stocks were on the receiving end. Suzlon declined over 6% to Rs985, Tata Power was down nearly by 4% to Rs508 and REL slipped 1.2% to Rs469.

Aviation stocks also crashed down on back of selling pressure. Jet Airways plunged by over 9.5% to Rs542, Air Deccan slumped over 9% to Rs106 and Spice Jet declined 2.2% to Rs45.

Telecom stocks were also battered out. Reliance Communication declined over 3.5% to Rs398, Bharti Airtel slipped 2.8% to Rs686, VSNL was down 1.3% to Rs355 and MTNL edged lower 0.8% to Rs134.

Select Cement stocks witnessed fresh buying towards the end. Gujarat Ambuja Cement gained 2% to Rs112; Grasim edged higher 0.3% to Rs2101. However, India Cement declined 6.2% to Rs158 and Mangalam Cement was locked at 55 lower circuit to Rs159.