Market takes beating, falls below 17000

Across-the-board selling dragged the market by over 1.95% as indices followed the weak international markets and overlooked the strong quarterly numbers from heavyweights, Cummins, Bajaj Holding, Balaji Telefims and Moser Baer. The market never recovered after resuming 138 points lower at 17105 and the sentiment turned extremely bearish as the trading progressed. Followed by a sharp fall in heavyweights, correction in bank, realty, CG, power and auto stocks dragged the index below the 16900 mark in noon trades to touch the day's low of 16863, down 380 points from yesterday's close of 17243. Finally, the Sensex tumbled by 336 points at 16907 while the Nifty dropped 92 points to close at 5025.

All the sectoral indices took heavy hammering. The BSE Bankex led the slump and dropped 3.06% at 8,376 followed by the BSE Reality index (down 2.68% at 7,693), the BSE CG index (down 2.40% at 13,342), the BSE Power index (down 2.12% at 3,233) and the BSE Auto index (down 2.05% at 4,685).

The market breadth was extremely weak. Of the 2,791 stocks traded on the BSE 1,684 stocks declined, 1,040 stocks advanced and 67 stocks ended unchanged. While only one Sensex stock advanced, 29 declined today. Among the major losers, Tata Motors slumped 3.98% at Rs661.45, Reliance Infra shed 3.97% at Rs1,322.95, ICICI Bank declined 3.39% at Rs880.40, SBI lost 3.28% at Rs1,607, Reliance Communication shed 3.16% at Rs584.65, Jaiprakash Associates fell 2.65% at Rs246.10, Ambuja Cement slipped by 2.61% at Rs104.30, Larsen & Toubro plunged 2.57% at Rs2,916.80 and HDFC Bank tumbled 2.40% at Rs1,379.90. Other blue chips also fell around 1-2% each. Among the gainers only Hindalco Industries added 0.20% at Rs197.65.

Among the bank stocks, Indian Overseas tanked 4.82% at Rs138.25, Axis Bank slumped 4.73% at Rs828.40, Yes Bank dropped 4.52% at Rs161.45, PNB shed 3.70% at Rs537.60 and Kotak Bank was down 3.12% at Rs714.85.

Ispat Industries was the most actively traded counter with volumes of over 4.32 crore shares traded on the BSE followed by IFCI (3.13 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilizers (1.11 crore shares), RNRL (1.09 crore shares) and Cybermate (0.99 crore shares).

Value-wise Reliance Capital clocked a turnover of Rs225 crore followed by IFCI (Rs201 crore), Cairn India (Rs189 crore), R Power (Rs180 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs176 crore).