Market slumps on weak global cues

A steep fall in the Asian markets triggered heavy selling that saw the Sensex shed 471 points for the day.

The Sensex plunged in early trades on weak global markets. The sell-off saw the Sensex slip to a five-month low of 12,344, down 542 points.
The market remained range-bound with a negative bias in the afternoon, while a few cement stocks stayed in positive territory on moderate buying support. The key Asian benchmark index--the Nikkei--closed with losses of 3.34% and witnessed its biggest one-day fall in nine months. The Hang Sang, the Straits Times and the Jakarta indices closed with losses of 3-4% each. The fall in the Asian indices was on concern that the US economy may have been slowing down at a faster pace than predicted. This had a negative impact on the domestic market. The Sensex finally ended the session at 12415, down 471 points, while the Nifty shed 150 points and closed at 3576.

All the sectoral indices were hammered on relentless selling pressure. The BSE CG Index dropped 5.79% at 8218, the BSE Auto Index lost 5.31% at 4750 and the BSE Metal Index shed 5.19% at 7986. The other sectoral indices shed around 3-4% each.

The broader market was extremely weak. Of the 2,611 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,363 stocks declined, 220 stocks advanced and 28 stocks ended unchanged. Except Gujarat Ambuja all the stocks in the Sensex basket ended in the red. Among the major losers Ranbaxy tanked 8.18% at Rs319, Maruti Udyog tumbled 7.67% at Rs770, Wipro plunged 7.19% at Rs532, Dr Reddy's slumped 6.45% at Rs618, Tata Steel fell 6.10% at Rs416, L&T shed 6.05% at Rs1,376, Reliance Communications dropped 5.25% at Rs394, Reliance Industries slipped 5.11% at Rs1,250 and Tata Motors was down 5.10% at Rs735. The other front-line stocks were down 3-5% each.

Consumer goods stocks slipped sharply. Reliance Industrial Infrastructure tumbled 10% at Rs393, Jyoti Structures slumped 9.99% at Rs156, Praj Industries dropped 9.16% at Rs325, Carborundum Universal declined 8.28% at Rs147, SKF dipped 8.27% at Rs294, Crompton Grieves fell 7.76% at Rs184 and Lakshmi Machine Works was down 7.43% at Rs2,810. Auto and auto ancillary stocks were also battered. Kirloskar Oil Engines, TVS Motors, Escorts, Ashok Leyland, Apollo Tyres, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hindustan Motors tumbled 7-10% each.

Indian Bank witnessed volumes of over 50.16 lakh shares on the BSE followed by IDFC (35.48 lakh shares), Gujarat Ambuja (26.34 lakh shares), Tata Steel (25.18 lakh shares) and SAIL (23.77 lakh shares).