Sensex slips on weak European markets

As the shares of Northern rock the UK mortgage lender tumbled for the second consecutive day, the equities in Europe opened weak extending Friday's losses. Weakness in European markets triggered a major selling in domestic indices. Shrugging off the weak Asian markets, the Sensex resumed with a positive gap of 61 points and moved with in a range above 15,600 for the better part of the session with a positive bias. However, a strong selling bout in the afternoon dragged the Sensex to the day's low at 15,467. The index showed signs of a pull back towards the close, but ended the session by shedding 99 points at 15,504. The Nifty dropped 23 points to close at 4,495.

The market breadth was neutral. Of the 2,812 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,384 stocks advanced, 1,360 stocks declined and 68 stocks ended unchanged. Out of the 12 sectoral indices, six indices ended higher and six indices eased on profit taking. The BSE CD index gained 3.21% followed by the BSE FMCG index (up 0.87%). However, the BSE Teck index slipped 1.44% and the BSE IT index tumbled 1.39%, while the BSE bankex, the BSE Oil & Gas index, the BSE PSU index and the BSE Realty index closed with marginal losses.

Most of the index heavyweights ended in the red. HDFC was the major loser and tumbled by 3.31% at Rs2,144. TCS at Rs997, Reliance Communication at Rs531, Bharti Airtel at Rs814 slumped around 2% each. Among the other major losers Satyam Computer dropped 1.97% at Rs422, NTPC lost 1.56% at Rs183, ICICI Bank fell 1.37% at Rs895 and Infosys declined by 1.35% at Rs1,806. Reliance Energy, however, bucked the downtrend and gained 2.85% at Rs908. Maruti Udyog was up by 1% at Rs874.

Consumer durable stocks registered strong gains. Rajesh export surged 7.86% at Rs787. While Titan Industries advanced 6.90% at Rs1,497, Gitanjali Gems gained 3.34% at Rs294 and Videocon Industries was up marginally at Rs367.

Over 3.62 crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.44 crore shares), Centurion Bank of Punjab (1.25 crore shares), Indowind Energy (96.45 lakh shares) and Sunflag Iron & Steel (87.91 lakh shares).

GMR Infrastructure was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs136 crore followed by Indowind Energy (Rs125 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs121 crore), IFCI (Rs115 crore) and United Sprits (Rs104 crore).