Sensex cools, drops 279 points

The Sensex witnessed the awaited correction today as a meltdown in the major global indices turned the market upside down. After rallying for the past few sessions the index lost 279 points on sustained selling in heavyweights, oil, banking and metal stocks. The market began on a positive note at 14552 and touched the day's high of 14591 but remained range-bound as the trading progressed. After slipping below the 14500 level in noon trades, the Sensex plunged deep into the red towards the close on unabated selling in oil, banking and metal stocks, touching the day's low of 14234. The Sensex signed off the session with losses of 1.92% or 279 points at 14256. The Nifty tumbled by 2.02% or 87 points to close at 4198.

The breadth of the market was extremely weak. Of the 2,615 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,706 stocks declined, 842 stocks advanced and 67 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices were hammered today. The BSE Oil & Gas Index led the slump and crashed by 3.16% at 7469. The BSE PSU Index was down 3.01% at 6552, the BSE Bankex Index lost 2.93% at 7595 and the BSE Metal Index dropped 2.20% at 10414. Other sectoral indices slipped by around 1-2% each.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks 26 ended in the red, with oil and banking stocks taking a strong beating. Among the oil stocks, Reliance Industries plummeted by 3.31% at Rs1,687 and ONGC crashed by 3.30% at Rs864. Banking majors SBI slumped 3.35% at Rs1,388 and ICICI Bank lost nearly 3.02% at Rs911. Index heavyweight Tata Steel plunged 3.66% at Rs618, HDFC shed 3.51% at Rs1,831, Tata Motors declined by 3.37% at Rs687, Reliance Energy slipped by 3.17% at Rs533 and BHEL fell by 3.09% at Rs1340.

Oil stocks took a major hit today. Reliance Natural Resources tanked 4.04% at Rs34, Gail shed 3.53% at Rs293, Petronet LNG slumped 3.47% at Rs56 and Mangalore Refineries dipped 3.46% at Rs40.

Over 2.02 crore IFCI stocks changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.31 crore shares), Nitin Fire Protections (85.55 lakh shares), Tata Teleservices (72.13 lakh shares) and GV Films (66.84 lakh shares).

Value-wise Nitin Fire Protections registered a turnover of Rs417 crore followed by Wipro (Rs274 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs165 crore), MIC Electric (Rs129 crore) and Reliance Communication (Rs120 crore).