CG, metal and power stocks lead market slump

Continuing the bear trend, the market witnessed another round of frenzied selling with correction in the index heavyweights with the CG, metal and power stocks shaving off over 348 points during the intra-day trades. After resuming 148 points lower at 14,423, the market remained under the grip of sustained selling pressure. Extensive correction in heavyweight CG, metal, power and realty stocks dragged the index below the 14,200 mark to the day's low of 14,163. The Sensex finally ended the session at 14,293, down 278 points, while the Nifty shed 81 points to close at 4,266.

The breadth of the market was negative with 2,222 declines, 425 advances and 50 stocks ending unchanged. All the sectoral indices had a weak outing except the information technology (IT) stocks. The BSE CG index slipped sharply and dropped 5.29% followed by the BSE Metal index (down 4.62%), the BSE Power index (down 4.01%), the BSE Realty index (down 3.64%), the BSE Auto index (down 2.95%), BSE Oil & Gas index (down 2.63%), BSE Bankex index (down 2.56%), BSE PSU index (down 2.46%) and the BSE HC index (down 2.43%) etc.v Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 24 stocks lost ground and 6 managed to end with steady gains. Among the major losers, JP Associates slumped 7.95% at Rs15.35, Hindalco plummeted 7.83% at Rs146.80, L&T tumbled 6.53% at Rs2,380, Maruti Suzuki India shed 5.43% at Rs2,682.05, Ranbaxy Laboratories crashed 5.38% at Rs509.50, Reliance Infrastructure dropped 4.76% at Rs906, Mahindra & Mahindra lost 4.55% at Rs546 and Tata Steel declined nearly 4.12% at Rs731.10. Reliance Industries, SBI, ACC, BHEL, DLF, ICICI Bank, ITC, Ambuja Cement, Grasim Industries, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Tata Consultanct Services fell over 0.60-2% each. However, ONGC gained 2.36% at Rs887.30, HDFC, Wipro, Infosys, Satyam Computer Services and Hindustan Unilever ended marginally higher around 1%.

CG stocks came under the grip of sharp hammering. Alstom Projects crumbled 8.65% at Rs372.15, Punj Lloyd slumped 6.86% at Rs225.55, Larsen & Toubro dropped 6.53% at Rs2,396.30 and Suzlon Energy declined by 6.21% at Rs228. Elecon Engineering, Crompton Greaves, Areva T&D India, Havells India, Jyoti Structure, SKF India, AIA engineer, and Praj Industries shed around 3-5% each.

Over 1.41 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.39 crore shares), IFCI (1.06 crore shares), Chambal Fertiliser (1.05 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (0.82 crore shares).