Market dips amid strong volatility

The market was extremely choppy during intra-day trades, as stocks gyrated between zones amid strong volatile moves. After opening slightly above its previous close at 17,687, the index gained more ground on sustained buying support to touch the day's high of 17,736, 136 points above its previous close of 17,600. While the index remained firm above the 17,700 mark for some time, it took a sharp downward turn in noon trades on resumption of hectic selling pressure and tumbled to an intra-day low of 17,457, down 279 points from the day's high. Buying in select counters saw the Sensex erase most of its losses by the closing hours, but still ended with losses of 109 points at 17,491. The Nifty, too, witnessed sideways movement and declined 36 points to close at 5,191.

However, the market breadth ended positive. Of the 2,776 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,639 stocks advanced, 1,099 stocks declined and 38 stocks ended unchanged. The BSE CD lost 2.22% while the BSE Auto index, the BSE IT index, the BSE Teck index, the BSE Power index, the BSE CG index and the BSE Oil & Gas index ended with marginal losses. The BSE PSU index, the BSE Realty index, BSE HC index and the BSE Metal index, however, finished in the green.

Among the laggards, Wipro slumped 2.41% at Rs490.10, SBI dropped 2.36% at Rs1,779.20, HDFC shed 2.30% at Rs2,710.05 and DLF was down 2.10% at Rs705.05. Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Ambuja Cement, Satyam Computer Services, Hindalco and Reliance Communications were down around 1% each. Cipla, however, moved up 1.43% at Rs216. Tata Steel advanced 0.70% at Rs802.55, Grasim Industries gained 0.65% at Rs2,384.10 and ACC jumped 0.56% at Rs757.75.

Select IT stocks came under selling pressure. I-Flex, Aptech, Tech Mahindra, NIIT Technology, HCL Technologies, Rolta India, Mphasis, Wipro, TCS and Satyam Computer Services were down 1-5% each.

Sesa Goa at Rs4,390, Dalal Street at Rs2,499, Sterling Biotech at Rs210, G S Auto at Rs123.45, Suashis Diamond at Rs349, Well pack at Rs61.50, Radhe Developers at Rs150, Rai Agro at Rs1,675 and India Tourism at Rs99.60 touched new all-time highs.

Over 1.86 crore Tata Teleservices shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Kashyap (1.47 crore shares), ISPAT Industries (1.40 crore shares), IFCI (1.22 crore shares) and RNRL (1.09 crore shares).

Valuewise, Titagarh registered a turnover of Rs225 crore followed by HDFC (Rs198 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs197 crore), Unitech (Rs166 crore) and Jaiprakash Associates (Rs154 crore).