Market maimed amid sharp volatility

Fall in global crude oil prices and even positive international indices failed to lift market sentiment. The Sensex after gaining 225 points in early trades and touching the day's high of 17,086 drifted into negative territory in late morning trades. In noon trades, sentiment turned extremely bearish as sustained selling in heavyweights, oil & gas, teck and IT stocks dragged the index below the 16,700 mark to an intra-day low of 16,697. Finally the Sensex ended the session with losses of 108 points at 16,753, after gyrating 389 points during intra-day trades. Nifty dropped 55 points to close at 4,958.

However, the market breadth was positive. Of the 2,784 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,410 stocks advanced, 1,305 stocks declined and the remaining 69 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices were down today. Among sectoral indices, BSE Oil & Gas index dropped 2.56%, BSE Teck index dipped 0.88%, BSE IT index lost 0.76%, BSE CG index declined 0.46% and BSE Auto index was down 0.39%.

Dragging the index ONGC dropped 3.08% at Rs997.10, ACC slumped 2.66% at Rs683, Wipro lost 2.66% at Rs494.20, TCS declined 2.33% at Rs905.70, Reliance Industries moved down 2.08% at 2,501.45 and Bharti Airtel shed 2.03% at Rs821.25. Among other heavy losers, among oil & gas stocks, Cairn Energy lost 8.48% at Rs277.25, Essar Oil slumped 3.95% at Rs250.25, Aban Offshore tumbled 3.08% at Rs997.10, BPCL slipped by 2.68% at Rs348.50 and Reliance Petroleum dipped 2.06% at Rs178.20. IOC however bucked the downtrend and soared closing with marginal gains.

Over 7.26 crore Aishwarya Telecom shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (3.50 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.47 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.18 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (1.16 crore shares).