Sensex drops 118 points on broad-based selling

The market took a sound beating today, as key indices buckled under relentless selling pressure, after exhibiting a volatile and weak trend in the first half. The Sensex, after opening marginally lower below its previous close at 17,44, turned positive and crossed the high 17,500 mark to touch an early high of 17,502. However, after witnessing sideways movement for a while, the market settled in negative territory and tumbled sharply in noon trades on the back of across-the-board selling pressure. The Sensex, which crashed to the day's low of 17,238 (down 253 points from the day's high), finally ended with losses of 0.67% or 118 points at 17,373. The Nifty, too, succumbed to heavy losses and dropped 48 points to close at 5,145.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,755 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,722 stocks declined, 965 stocks advanced and 68 stock ended unchanged.

BSE Reality index with losses of 4.63% was the major loser among the sectoral indices followed by BSE Power index (down 2.15%), BSE CG (down 1.80%), BSE HC index (down 1.41%), BSE PSU index (down 1.33%) and BSE Auto index (down 0.83%). However, BSE IT index bucked the downtrend and ended with gains of 1.53%, FMCG and Metal ended with marginal gains.

Bharti Airtel slumped 5.29% at Rs846.60, DLF tumbled 5.26% at Rs667.95, Jaiprakash Associates lost 5.15% at Rs271.90, Reliance Energy declined 4.92% at Rs1,442.30, BHEL lost 2.47% at Rs1,860.45, Larsen & Toubro shed 2.30% at Rs3,061.15 and Maruti Suzuki was down 2.23% at Rs766.90. Among other major laggards ACC, Mahindra, Reliance Communications, SBI, NTPC, Grasim Industries, Hindalco, Ranbaxy Laboratories, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors and Reliance Industries dropped around 1% each. However, Satyam Computer Services moved up 1.96% at Rs497.05 and ITC was marginally up at Rs224.90.

Rising crude oil prices in international market weighed on oil stocks. HPCL lost 3.95% at Rs254.10, IOC lost 1.97% at Rs476.70, BPCL dipped 1.68% at Rs395.25, Essar Oil slipped 1.55% at Rs284.95, RNRL shed 1.52% at Rs119.65, GAIL declined 1.14% at Rs437.60 and Reliance Petroleum was down 0.35% at Rs201.40.

Realty stocks lost ground on sustained selling pressure. Unitech dropped 7.21% at Rs307.05, HDFC shed 6.15% at Rs781.70, Omaxe lost 5.48% at Rs232 and DLF Systems slipped by 5.26% at Rs667.95. Ansal Infra, Peninsula Land, Parsvnath, Sobha Developers, Anant Raj, Puravankara, Indiabulls Realty and Akruti declined around 1-4% each. Select Power stocks also edged lower. GMR Infrastructure fell 5.08% at Rs157.80, Tata Power lost 4.49% at Rs1,331.75 and BHEL was down 2.47% at Rs1,860.45. Torrent Pharma, Suzlon Energy and NTPC were down around 1-2% each.

Over 1.74 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.72 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.50 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.19 crore Shares) and Reliance Petroleum (1.01 crore shares).