Market sinks on bear hammering

The market went into a complete tailspin as the much awaited correction shaved nearly 900 points off the Sensex during the intra-day trades. Positive global cues like oil prices cooling off further failed to lift the sentiment, as investors instead tracked the falling Asian indices since early trades. After resuming on a weak note at 15,873, the market continued to remain negative and remained under the bear hug for the rest of the session. The Sensex nearly slipped below 15,200 towards the close as a wave of selling in heavyweights, realty, metal, consumer durables and power stocks saw it slump to an intra-day low of 15,229. The Sensex finally ended 4.78% lower or down 771 points at 15,357, while the Nifty crashed 248 points to close at 4,624. Among the Asian indices, Nikkei tanked 3.33% (down 428 points) at 15,794, Hang Seng dropped 4.79% (down 1,121 points) at 22,302 and Kospi was down 2.60% (down 43 points) at 1,616.

The market breadth was extremely negative, Of the 2,708 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,332 stocks declined, 345 stocks advanced and 31 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices took sharp beatings. The BSE Reality index bore the major brunt and crashed 11.59% at 7,362 while the BSE Metal index, the BSE CD index, the BSE Power index, the BSE PSU index and the BSE Bankex index dropped over 4-8% each.

Except Hind Utilites, all the 29 stocks in the Sensex pack ended in the red. Among the major losers DLF tumbled 14.87% at Rs607, Reliance Energy slumped 9.87% at Rs1,197, Hindalco crumbled 9.44% at Rs173.70, Tata Steel plunged 9.04% at Rs697.20, Reliance Communications dropped 7.07% at Rs501.45, BHEL declined 6.63% at Rs1,882.80 and Wipro fell 6.37% at Rs365. Other frontline stocks also dropped over 3-6% each.

Over 2.59 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by V Guard (1.90 crore shares), RECLTD (1.70 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.42 crore shares) and RPL (1.29 crore shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Industries clocked a turnover of Rs282 crore followed by RNRL (Rs277 crore), HDFC (Rs275 crore), RPL (Rs204 crore) and Essar Oil (Rs186 crore).