Sensex drops 182 points amid sharp volatility

Nervousness among investors to take fresh positions was visible through the entire trading session, as traders booked profits on every rise. The market opened with a negative gap of 78 points tracking mixed global cues, but recovered quickly on strong buying in index pivotal stocks to touch the day's high of 19,375. The market thereafter witnessed choppy trading. After exhibiting a range-bound trend with a mixed bias, profit booking in banking, capital goods, and metal stocks saw the Sensex slump below the 19,100 mark by afternoon. The Sensex managed to erase some losses towards the close but a fresh bout of selling saw it touch the day's low 19,009 and end the session with a loss of 182 points at 19,080. Broad-based Nifty closed the session at 5,742, down 35 points.

Market breadth was weak. Of 2,930 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,672 stocks declined, 1,225 stocks advanced and 33 stocks ended unchanged. Most sectoral indices ended weak. BSE bankex index slipped by 142% followed by BSE Metal index (down 1.35%) and BSE CG index (down 1.18%) while, BSE HC index gained 1.50%, BSE CD index added 1.12% and BSE PSU index was up 0.39%.

Among major losers, HLL slipped 3.39% at Rs211, L&T tumbled by 2.80% at Rs3,968, ICICI Bank declined by 2.27% at Rs1,141, HDFC plunged by 2.27% at Rs2,812, Reliance Industries dropped 1.75% at Rs2,729, ONGC crumbled by 1.41% at Rs1,150, HDFC Bank slumped 1.28% at Rs1,657 and BHEL fell by 1.24% at Rs2,395. However, Cipla gained 3.78% at Rs216, ITC surged 2.22% at Rs198, NTPC added 1.66% at Rs232 and Ranbaxy moved up by 1.05% at Rs410 while Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel, ACC, DLF, Tata Motors and TCS ended with modest gains.

Over 3.77 crore IKF Technologies shares changed hands on BSE followed by IFCI (3.57 crore shares), Ispat Industries (3.31 crore shares), GV Films (2.65 crore shares) and Himachal Futuristic Communication (2.29 crore shares).

Valuewise, ONGC clocked a turnover of Rs387 crore on BSE followed by IFCI (Rs364 crore), Essar Oil (Rs292 crore), Ispat Industries (Rs259 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs227 crore).