Market slips 162 points

The market continued to move down for the second consecutive session. The Sensex opened in positive territory on firm Asian markets and buying interest in cement, sugar and banking stocks. The sugar stocks moved up on reports that the government plans to give export incentives to mills that export the sweetener. However the Sensex slipped into negative territory on selling in front-line and auto stocks. A surge in the crude oil prices on rising global political tensions over Iran's nuclear programme kept the auto stocks in the red. The selling in banking, auto and information technology stocks dragged the Sensex to an intra-day low of 13091, down 195 points. The Sensex finally ended the session at 13124, down 162 points. The Nifty closed at 3820, down 41 points.

The breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,641 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,739 stocks declined, 837 stocks advanced and 65 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE Auto Index was the biggest loser and shed 1.78% at 4950 followed by the BSE Bankex (down 1.98% at 6687) and the BSE IT Index (down 1.15% at 5009).

Among the laggards Tata Motors was down 4.51% at Rs754, HDFC Bank declined 3.58% at Rs976, Maruti Udyog shed 2.48% at Rs819, Wipro dropped 2.45% at Rs586, TCS lost 2.19% at Rs1,261 and Reliance Energy fell 2.16% at Rs476. However, select heavyweights attracted some buying support. Satyam Computers gained 1.73% at Rs472 and ONGC rose 1.18% at Rs853. Tata Steel and Reliance Communications ended with the marginal gains.

Select auto and auto ancillary stocks witnessed considerable selling pressure. Kirloskar Oil Engineers dropped 2.97% at Rs231, Sundaram Fastners lost 2.53% at Rs66, Apollo Tyres declined 1.85% at Rs265, Bharat Forge slipped 1.78% at Rs317 and Hero Honda was down 1.72% at Rs668.

Over 49.37 lakh Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Communications (30.50 lakh shares), Idea Cellular (15.76 lakh shares), Cairn India (12.17 lakh shares) and ITC (11.78 lakh shares).

Reliance Communications topped the value list with a turnover of Rs130 crore on the BSE followed by Infosys (Rs53 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs51 crore), Century Textiles (Rs50 crore) and TCS (Rs41 crore).