Market hammered amid oil woes

Market witnessed heavy selling as the sentiment remained bearish on the back of sudden spurt in crude oil prices, which closed over $100 in US markets. After resuming 85 points lower at 17,991, extensive correction in heavyweight, realty, banking and capital goods stocks assured that the Sensex remains in negative territory. Fall in the Asian markets followed by weak opening in European markets also dragged the Sensex to day's low of 17,506, down 570 points from the yesterday's close. Major Asian indices like the Hang Seng, the Kospi index and the Straits Times index shed 2-3% each, thereby adding pressure on the domestic indices. The Sensex finally ended the session at 17,618, down 458 points, while the Nifty shed 126 points and closed at 5,154.

Except IT index, all the sectoral indices were hammered on the back of relentless selling pressure on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The BSE Realty index dropped 3.43% at 9,726, the BSE Bankex index lost 3.25% at 10,607, the BSE CG index shed 2.79% at 15,936 and the BSE PSU index fell 2.70% at 8,306.

The broader market was weak. Of the 2,796 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,932 stocks declined, 806 stocks advanced and 58 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the stocks in the Sensex basket ended in the red. Among the major losers Tata Steel tanked 4.92% at Rs773, Maruti Suzuki tumbled by 4.76% at Rs769, BHEL declined by 4.54% at Rs2,124, Tata Motors slumped 4.36% at Rs706, ICICI Bank fell 4.19% at Rs1,167, HDFC plunged 3.77% at Rs2,752, M&M dropped 3.50% at Rs635, Reliance Communications slipped by 3.40% at Rs585 and NTPC was down 3.30% at Rs198. However, TCS gained 1.05% at Rs884, while Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Satyam Computers and Ambuja Cement closed with modest gains.

RNRL witnessed volumes of over 1.91 crore shares on the BSE followed by BANG (1.66 crore shares), Hexaware (1.53 crore shares), Shriram EPC (1.04 crore shares) and Essar Oil (97.07 lakh shares).

Valuewise, BANG registered a turnover of Rs326 crore on the BSE followed by Shriram EPC (Rs323 crore), On Mobile (Rs265 crore), RNRL (Rs258 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs252 crore).