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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Market slips below 18,000 again


Across-the-board selling saw the market slip by 1.84% as the Sensex followed the weak international markets. Despite opening on a positive note at 18,120, the Sensex quickly slipped in the red and the market fell further as the sentiment turned extremely bearish. Europe's largest bank by assets, UBS AG reported record loss of about $14 billion on assets infected by subprime mortgages in the US also dampened the sentiment. The sharp fall in the heavyweights and a correction in oil, consumer durables, and FMCG stocks dragged the index below the 17,700 mark in the afternoon to touch the day's low of 17,684, down 408 points. The market remained nervous thereafter and the Sensex finally closed with losses of 333 points at 17,759, while the Nifty shed 113 points to close at 5,168.

The breadth of the market was weak. Of the 2,787 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,018 stocks declined, 726 stocks advanced and 43 stocks ended unchanged. The sectoral indices were largely weak. The BSE Oil & Gas index lost 4.45%, the BSE Power index declined by 2.88% and the BSE CD shed 2.73% and the rest closed with marginal losses.

Several heavyweights took a sharp tumble on late selling pressure. Among power stocks, Reliance Energy slipped and shed 5.44% at Rs1,992 and NTPC tumbled by 4.70% at Rs202. Among the other major losers HLL slumped by 5.14% at Rs197, ONGC lost 4.94% at Rs969, Reliance Communications slipped by 4.74% at Rs612, Reliance Industries dipped 4.12% at Rs2,470 and Bajaj Auto shed 3.26% at Rs2,301. Select counters, however, ended in the green. BHEL advanced by 1.82% each at Rs2,089, HDFC gained 1.53% at Rs2,894 and Tata Steel added 1.02% at Rs724.

Over 1.58 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.04 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (94.05 lakh shares), Essar Oil (94.49 lakh shares) and Himachal Futuristic Communications (63.17 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Natural Resources registered a turnover of Rs223 crore on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (Rs217 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs178 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs155 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs138 crore).