Sensex trims losses on late buying

The Sensex bucked the major downtrend across the Asian markets and trimmed 770 points of losses on late buying in heavyweights, auto, and banking stocks. The market was once again hit by a substantial selling pressure and the indices tumbled by around 5% each amid a choppy trading session. Taking cue from weak global markets, the Sensex opened on a negative note at 18,012 and fell sharply to touch an intra-day low of 17,443. While the market witnessed a fluctuating trend for a while, the afternoon trades saw sudden buying interest in frontline stocks and the Sensex chopped off most of its losses to close at 18,152, down 209 points or 1.14%. The Nifty, too, bounced back sharply and closed at 5,274, down 109 points or 2.03%.

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outpacing the gainers in the ratio of 2.14:1. Of the 2,747 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,852 stocks declined, 863 stocks advanced and 32 stocks ended unchanged. The sectoral indices were largely weak. The BSE Realty index lost 4.54%, the BSE IT index declined by 3.69% and the BSE Tech shed 3.67%. However, the BSE Auto index rose 1.72% and the BSE Bankex index gained 1.24%.

Among the 30 Sensex stocks, 18 ended in the red. Among the major losers DLF tanked by 5.57% at Rs893, Wipro tumbled by 5.35% at Rs406, Bharti Airtel declined by 4.91% at Rs870, Infosys plunged by 4.90% at Rs1,447, Ranbaxy dropped 4.77% at Rs350, NTPC crumbled by 4.23% at Rs212, SBI slumped 4.05% at Rs2,308 and BHEL fell by 3.36% at Rs2,092. However, Bajaj Auto advanced 8.62% at Rs2,459, Maruti Suzuki jumped 3.97% at Rs863, Reliance Energy surged 3.32% at Rs2,098 and HDFC gained 2.52% at Rs2,782, while M&M, ACC, ICICI Bank, Cipla, Tata Motors and Hindalco closed with marginal gains.

Over 1.73 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.47 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (9.11 crore shares), IFCI (7.62 crore shares) and Essar Oil (7.48 crore shares).

RNRL was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs239 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs179 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs164 crore), Essar Oil (Rs164 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs150 crore).