Banking, reality and power lead market slump

Continuing the bear trend the market witnessed another round of frenzied selling with major correction in index heavyweights—with the banking, reality and power stocks shaving off over 901 points during intra-day trades. After resuming 351 points lower at 17,228, the market remained under the grip of sustained selling pressure. Extensive correction in heavyweights--banking, reality, power, consumer goods and public sector unit stocks-- in noon trades dragged the index below the 16,700 mark to the day's low of 16,634. The Sensex finally ended the session at 16,678, down 901 points, while the Nifty shed 271 points to close at 4,953.

The breadth of the market was negative with 1,599 declines, 395 advances and 38 stocks ending unchanged. All the sectoral indices had a weak outing. The BSE Bankex index slipped sharply and dropped 6.72% followed by Reality index (down 6.35%), the BSE Power index (down 6.35%), the BSE CG index (down 5.81%), the BSE PSU index (down 5.71%), BSE Metal index (down 5.62%) and the BSE Oil & Gas index (down 5.53% etc.

Out of 30 Sensex stocks, 26 stocks lost ground and 4 managed to end with steady gains. Among the major losers, SBI slumped 8.83% at Rs1,923.40, DLF plummeted 8.44% at Rs714.70, HDFC tumbled 8.25% at Rs2,571.35, BHEL shed by 8.00% at Rs2,099, Hindalco crashed 6.43% at Rs189.90, NTPC dropped 6.34% at Rs188.95, RIL lost 6.24% at Rs2,304.75 and ICICI Bank declined nearly 6.10% at Rs1,024.45. Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Satyam, L&T, Infosys, ITC, HDFC Bank, Bharti, Tata Steel and Grasim fell over 3-5% each. However, Cipla gained 2.12% at Rs211.65, Hind Utilities, Ranbaxy and Maruti Suzuki ended marginally higher over 1%.

Bankex stocks came under the grip of sharp hammering. Punjab National Bank crumbled 9.65% at Rs545.85, Kotak Bank slumped 9.07% at Rs728.70, SBI dropped 8.83% at Rs1,923.40 and Bank of India declined by 8.48% at Rs329.05. Canara Bank, Axis Bank, Union Bank, Yes Bank, BOB, Allahabad Bank, ICICI Bank, and Centurion Bank of Punjab shed around 5-7% each.

Reality stocks too declined sharply. DLF dropped 8.44% at Rs714.70, Peninsula Land lost 8.16% at Rs88.40, Pasrsvanath slipped by 6.27% at Rs251.85, Ansal Infrastructure fell 6.22% at Rs202 and Anant Raj slumped 5.99% at Rs300. HDFC, M&M, Indiabulls Reality and Unitech dipped over 5-7% each.

Over 1.41 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (1.21 crore shares), IFCI (1.09 crore shares), Essar Oil (1.01 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (0.99 crore shares).