Sensex drops 205 points

After the last week’s strong upsurge of 650 points, the market failed to rally further as weak Asian indices and overnight fall on the US bourses weighed on the sentiment. Barring the consumer durable stocks, selling was visible in all the sectors, from metals to banks. The benchmark BSE-30 Sensex opened with a negative gap of 69 points at 17,366 and never recovered from the early slump. While the market moved in a range below 17250 for the better part of the trading session, the index witnessed a steep fall towards the closing hours and nearly breached the 17150 mark to touch the day's low of 17136. The Sensex pared losses on selective gains and ended the session with losses of 205 points at 17230 while the Nifty declined 53 points to close at 5105.

The breadth of the market was strong. Of the 2,789 stocks traded on the BSE 1,431 stocks advanced, 1,292 stocks declined and 66 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the Bankex dropped sharply and lost 1.98% while the BSE Realty index, the BSE PSU index, the BSE HC index and the BSE Oil & Gas index were down over 1% each. The BSE CD index was the major gainer and gained 2.70% followed by the metal and auto stocks.

Heavyweights led the fall in the Sensex. Jaiprakash Associates dropped 5.22% at Rs256, Reliance Infra slumped 4.53% at Rs1,394.40, BHEL shed 3.28% at Rs1,736.50, SBI lost 2.85% at Rs1,655.45, Bharti Airtel slipped by 2.65% at Rs828.75 and NTPC tumbled 2.64% at Rs186. HDFC Bank, TCS, Hindalco, Wipro and Cipla declined over 2% each. Among the gainers, Satyam rose 1.32% at Rs1,494.60 while Tata Motors, Infosys, Tata Steel, ACC, HDFC and Ranbaxy ended with modest gains.

Banking stocks declined sharply. Bank of India dropped 5.14% at Rs339.90, Axis Bank declined 3.58% at Rs869.40, SBI lost 2.85% at Rs1,655.45 and Centurion Bank of Punjab slipped by 2.63% at Rs48.15. Yes Bank, Union Bank, ICICI Bank, KMFL and BOB were down around 1-2% each.

Over 1.46 crore shares of Aishwarya Tele changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.40 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.14 crore shares), Cairn India (0.91 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilizers (0.89 crore shares).