Sensex tanks on weak global cues

Despite touching all-time high in morning trades, the market shed over 400 points during the day and touched the day's low of 20,066 towards the close tracking weakness in international markets. The market was under selling pressure for the entire trading session, however small-caps received major buying support. After yesterday's gain of 84 points, the Sensex resumed on a positive note at 20,498, up 122 points, but lost ground as trading progressed. The market witnessed a steep fall towards the close as selling in heavyweights, oil, technology and banking stocks dragged the Sensex to its day's low. The Sensex finally wrapped up the session at 20,104, down 271 points. The Nifty closed at 6,058, down 101 points.

However, the market breadth was positive. Of the 2,928 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,848 stocks advanced, 1,054 stocks declined and 26 stocks ended unchanged. Except few, all the sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE Oil & Gas index was the major loser and declined 2.17% at 12,867 followed by the BSE Teck index (down 2.10% at 3,880), the BSE Bankex index (down 1.85% at 11,495) and the BSE PSU index (down 1.59% at 10,083).

Except for a few select stocks, most of the front-line stocks succumbed to selling pressure. Among the major laggards Bharti Airtel shed 6.24% at Rs988, ICICI Bank dropped 3.70% at Rs1,243, Maruti Suzuki slumped by 3.45% at Rs1,038, Satyam Computer declined by 2.34% at Rs421, ONGC fell 2.23% at Rs1,228, BHEL tumbled by 2.15% at Rs2,592 and NTPC slipped by 1.97% at Rs246. ITC, however, advanced 4.12% at Rs197, Tata Steel gained 2.89% at Rs889, Cipla added 2.10% at Rs204, Hindalco moved up 1.58% at Rs209, Bajaj Auto surged 1.46% at Rs2,819 and HDFC added 1.08% at Rs3,137 while Ranbaxy, Mahindra & Mahindra, HLL and DLF ended with steady gains.

Over 4.77 crore Ispat industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by GV Films (3.82 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (2.87 crore shares), IFCI (2.46 crore shares) and Spice Teleservices (1.50 crore shares).

Value-wise, Ispat Industries was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs365 crore followed by IFCI (Rs274 crore), Mundra Port (Rs267 crore), Lanco Infratech (Rs199 crore) and Kolte Patil Developers(Rs198 crore)