Market fails to remain above 14000

he market lost its initial grip and suffered heavy losses on late selling in information technology (IT), banking, auto and several other major counters. The Sensex opened firm at 14045 and rallied sharply by mid-morning to touch an intra-day high of 14067. However, profit booking saw the key indices come off their early highs, with IT shares getting hit by the rupee's rise against the US Dollar. The market finally gave in to profit booking and the Sensex slipped into red in the afternoon. The Sensex touched the intra-day low of 13861 towards the close and finally ended the session at 13879, down 55 points while the Nifty closed the session at 4111, down six points.

The breadth of the market was weak. Of the 2,647 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,396 stocks declined, 1,192 stocks advanced and 59 stocks ended unchanged. The sectoral indices were largely weak. The BSE IT index lost 1.42%, the BSE Teck index declined by 0.90% and the BSE Bankex shed 0.92%. However, the BSE Oil & Gas index rose 1.07% and the BSE FMCG index gained by 0.14%.

Several heavyweights slipped on late selling pressure. Among IT stocks, Wipro slipped and shed 2.24% at Rs555, Satyam Computers tumbled by 2.17% at Rs460 and Infosys dropped 1.61% at Rs2,039. Among the other major losers, Dr Reddy's Laboratories slumped by 2.20% at Rs704, Hindalco lost 2.16% at Rs145, Cipla slipped by 1.38% at Rs214, ICICI Bank dipped 1.28% at Rs844 and NTPC shed 1.23% at Rs156. Select counters, however, ended in the green. Ranbaxy gained 2.03% at Rs390, Reliance Industries advanced by 1.45% at Rs1,605 and Hero Honda added 1.02% at Rs705 while Bharti Airtel, ACC, TCS, HLL, Grasim and Bajaj Auto gained marginally.

IT stocks declined on sharp selling pressure. Tech Mahindra tumbled by 1.57% at Rs1,625, Mphasis dropped 1.09% at Rs325, Financial Technologies shed 0.47% at Rs1,951 and HCL Tech lost 0.37% at Rs337. Several banking stocks too witnessed profit taking. Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, PNB and Oriental Bank were down 2-3% each.

Oil stocks, however, held ground and ended at higher levels. BPCL flared up by 4.60% at Rs350, IOC added 4.15% at Rs461, HPCL advanced by 3.87% at Rs289 and Reliance Natural Resources gained 0.74% at Rs27.

Over 2.52 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Nagarjuna Fertilizer (1.32 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.52 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.06 crore shares) and Himachal Futuristic (95.49 lakh shares).

Value-wise ICRA registered a turnover of Rs397 crore on the BSE followed by India Bulls (Rs260 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs199 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs156 crore) and TCS (Rs152 crore).