Sensex slips 383 points

Weak global cues and unwinding of positions by investors triggered a 700-point fall for the Sensex today. The market mirrored the Asian markets. Hang Seng tumbled 5.37% or 1,387 points, Nikkei fell 3.35% or 468 points and Jakarta Composite slipped 5.04% or 138 points. The Sensex resumed on a bearish note at 20,080, which was 172 points below its last close of 20,251 and accumulated losses of 738 points by afternoon on across-the-board selling pressure to touch the day's low of 19,513. However, short covering in index pivotal stocks saw the Sensex erase losses of 355 points towards close and end the session at 19,868, down 383 points. The Nifty declined by 2.28% and was down 139 points to close at 5,936.

The market breadth was heavily tilted in favour of the losers as 2,207 stocks declined, 615 stocks advanced and 18 stocks remained unchanged on the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE). Most of the sectoral indices were battered on the BSE. The BSE Realty index lost heavily and dropped 4.44% followed by the BSE Power index (down 3.67%), the BSE Metal index (down 3.17%), the BSE CG index (down 2.47%), the BSE PSU index (down 2.26%) and the BSE FMCG index (down 2.05%). The second-rung benchmark indices the BSE mid-cap index and the BSE small-cap index also slipped around 2% each.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks only six stocks managed to end in the green. Among the major losers HDFC Bank tanked 6.12% at Rs1,676. Reliance Communication slumped by 5.89% at Rs732, NTPC shed 5.55% at Rs259, BHEL crumbled by 4.42% at Rs2,309, Reliance Energy dropped 4.14% at Rs2,267 and DLF slipped by 4.12% at Rs1,128. Other front-line stocks also declined by around 1-3% each. However, ICICI Bank bucked the downtrend and advanced by 1.32% at Rs1,369, while Bharti Airtel, TCS, M&M, Cipla and SBI inched up marginally.

Over 2.84 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.35 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.16 crore shares), IFCI (98.40 lakh shares) and Cybermate Infotek (92.20 lakh shares).

Valuewise, RNRL registered a turnover of Rs600 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs303 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs285 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs253 crore) and Reliance Communication (Rs233 crore).