Post Market Commentary - March 3 2008

The Indian market closed with heavy losses on the back of heavy selling pressures across the sectoral indices. The market tumbled as the insurer American International Group Inc posted a record loss that led to the worries of more write-downs in the pipeline. The market opened on a sad note tracking the weak cues from the global markets and kept on hovering in the negative territory throughout the trading session. From the sectoral front, all the sectoral indices closed in red. The BSE Sensex closed lower by 900.84 at 16,677.88 and NSE Nifty fell by 270.5 points to close at 4,953. Following the benchmark indices, the BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap also closed lower by 315.54 points and 389.78 points at 7,364.85 and 9,238.35 respectively. The market breadth was weak as 2330 stocks closed in red while 396 stocks closed in green.

The Capital Goods index declined 936.89 points to close at 15,182.63. Major losers are Suzlon Energy (10.40%), BHEL (8%), Siemens (7.64%), Praj Inds (7.40%), L&T (5.09%).

The BSE Metal index fell by 940.65 points to close at 15,798.87. Losers are SAIL (9.65%), Ispat Inds (7.60%), Jindal Steel (7.23%), Sterlite Inds (6.44%), Hindalco (6.43%).

The BSE Oil & Gas index dropped by 610.05 points at 10,422.11 as RPL (7.56%), Essar Oil (6.81%), Aban Offshore (6.58%), Reliance Inds (6.24%), RNRL (6.10%) closed in negative.

The Realty index closed lower by 611.72 points at 8,953.95 as DLF (8.44%), Penland (8.16%), Parsvnath (6.27%), Ansal Infra (6.22%), Unitech (5.50%) closed in red.

The Bankex index slipped by 679.29 points to close at 9,434.44 as PNB (9.65%), Kotak bank (9.07%), SBI (8.83%), Axis bank (7.70%), Union bank (7.49%) closed lower.

The Power index fell by 233.19 points to close at 3,437.75 as Suzlon Ener (10.40%), GMR Infra (8.44%), Tata Power (6.78%), NTPC (6.34%), CESC (6.17%), Reliance Power (4.32%) closed lower.

From the IT index, Aptech (6.83%), Satyam (5.11%), Infosys 4.84%, Wipro (3.44%) and HCL Tech (1.75%) cloed in red.