Market takes further hit, drops 34 points

The market continued its downward movement for the third consecutive session as nervousness gripped investors over FIIs turning net sellers of equities in the last few sessions and higher crude oil prices on prevailing violence in West Asia. Strong optimism in early trades fizzled out after the Sensex had opened firm at 17,404 and added another 10 points to touch the day's high of 17,414. While the market slipped below 17,300 by late morning trades, afternoon trades saw the Sensex slip deep in red on sustained selling in capital goods (CG), public sector unit (PSU) and realty stocks and touch the day's low of 17,230. The Sensex managed to erase losses of 109 points from the day's low on selective buying in heavyweights and ended the session at 17,339, down 34 points, while the Nifty declined nine points to close at 5,136.

Broader market remained weak. Of the 2,765 stocks traded on the BSE 1,538 stocks declined, 1,163 stocks advanced and 64 stocks ended unchanged. Barring the BSE IT index, BSE Oil & Gas index, BSE FMCG index, BSE Auto index and the BSE HC index, rest of the sectoral indices ended in negative. The BSE CG index dropped 2.24% at 13,642, the BSE PSU index shed 1.65% at 7,956 and the BSE Realty index 1.55% at 8,208.

Among the major losers in frontline stocks, BHEL dropped 4.12% at Rs1,783.75, Bharti Airtel slumped 3.64% at Rs815.80, DLF shed 2.54% at Rs651, Ranbaxy Laboratories lost 1.82% at Rs466.30, Satyam Computer Services declined 1.56% at Rs489.30 and Hindalco Industries slipped nearly 1.15% at Rs179.75. However, TCS jumped 3.02% at Rs966.20, Mahindra & Mahindra rose 1.48% at Rs673.85, Infosys added 1.26% at Rs1,843.20, HLL advanced 1.17% at Rs251.10, Jaiprakash Associates moved up by 1.07% at Rs274.80 and Reliance Industries gained 1.05% at Rs2,682.35.

CG stocks came under sharp hammering. Bharat Electricity Products crumbled 6.11% at Rs1,229.90, Jyoti Structure tumbled 4.47% at Rs162.45, BHEL slumped 4.12% at Rs1,738.75, Elecon Engeneering fell 3.70% at Rs149.85, BEML lost 2.52% at Rs1,137.05, Larsen & Toubro declined 2.44% at Rs2,986.50, Punj Lloyd shed 2.06% at Rs354.45 and Havells India was down 1.99% at Rs474.80.

Over 8.27 crore Aishwarya Telecom shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Idea Cellular (2.03 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.80 crore shares), IFCI (1.23 crore shares), Cyber Mate (1.03 crore shares) and RNRL (1.01 crore shares)