Sensex plunges

On Friday the Reserve Bank of India hiked the CRR as well as the repo rate in a move to curb inflation. As anticipated the Sensex opened weak with a negative gap of 260 points at 12812. The market plunged 365 points in early trades as banking stocks plummeted on panic selling. The southbound journey continued as shares across sectors witnessed relentless selling pressure. In the afternoon the market slipped below the 12600 mark as the selling intensified in the auto, banking and capital goods stocks. Among the other Asian markets only the Nikkei was down 1.5% while the Straits Times, the Hang Sang and the Jakarta Composite closed with moderate gains. The continuous selling saw the Sensex touch the day's low of 12426, down 646 points from Friday's close. The Sensex ended the session at 12455, down 617 points, while the Nifty shed 188 points and closed at 3634.

All the sectoral indices were hammered and closed with substantial losses except the BSE FMCG Index and the BSE HC Index. The BSE Auto Index dropped 6.15% at 4570, the BSE Bankex lost 5.95% at 6153 and the BSE CG Index shed 5% at 8621.

The broader market was weak. Of the 2,546 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,765 stocks declined, 709 stocks advanced and 72 stocks ended unchanged. All the 30 stocks in the Sensex basket ended in the red. Among the major losers Maruti Udyog tanked 8.09% at Rs753, Tata Motors tumbled 8.04% at Rs669, Hero Honda declined 7.39% at Rs635, Wipro slumped 7.18% at Rs518, SBI fell 6.31% at Rs930, L&T plunged 5.82% at Rs1,525, HDFC dropped 5.77% at Rs1,433, ICICI Bank slipped 5.70% at Rs805, ONGC declined 5.67% at Rs828 and Tata Steel was down 5.67% at Rs424. The other front-line stocks were down 4-5% each.

Auto and auto ancillary stocks dipped sharply. M&M tumbled 8% at Rs715, Exide Industries slumped 8.09% at Rs39, Ashok Leyland dropped 5.59% at Rs36, Bajaj Auto declined 5.15% at Rs2,301, Escorts dipped 4.98% at Rs110, TVS Motors fell 4.45% at Rs57 and Bharat Forge was down 3.89% at Rs303. Banking stocks were also battered. Oriental Bank of Commerce tanked 10.08% at Rs169, Punjab National Bank tumbled 9.35% at Rs428 and Bank Of India slumped 8.16% at Rs154. Union Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Bank Of Baroda, UTI Bank, Canara Bank and Federal Bank shed 5-7% each.

SAIL witnessed volumes of over 22.93 lakh shares on the BSE followed by IDBI (21.24 lakh shares), Cairn India (18.71 lakh shares), Reliance Communications (17.80 lakh shares) and Reliance Petroleum (16.93 lakh shares).

Value-wise Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs164 crore on the BSE followed by Infosys (Rs102 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs71 crore), Tata Motors (Rs67 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs49 crore).