Global meltdown leads to market crash

The market witnessed a big carnage today, as widespread selling caused the index slip below the 15,100 mark shortly after the opening bell. A sharp slump across the international markets saw the Sensex resume 172 points lower at 15,250 and shed 370 points to touch the day's low of 15,052. The market soon moved above the 15,100 level, but traded below 15,200 through the session as intense selling continued in realty, banking and capital goods and other counters. The Sensex finally ended the session with a loss of 334 points at 15,088. The Nifty too came under selling pressure and lost 78 points to close at 4,504.

The market breadth was extremely weak, with the losers outnumbering the gainers by 2.14:1 on the BSE. Of the 2,576 stocks traded on the BSE 1,804 stocks declined, 840 stocks advanced and 71 stocks ended unchanged. All the BSE sectoral indices continued to trade weak and dropped around 0.50-4% each. The BSE Realty Index was the major loser and lost 4.27%, while the BSE Bankex Index shed 4.01%.

Majority of the 30 stocks of the Sensex ended in the red. Among the major losers Ranbaxy Laboratories shed 7.68% at Rs548.10, Reliance Infrastructure plunged 5.68% at Rs1,008, BHEL crumbled 5.04% at Rs1,416, Larsen & Toubro crashed 4.84% at Rs2,609.20, ICICI Bank slipped by 4.08% at Rs747.60, HDFC Bank tumbled 3.93% at Rs1,111.50, SBI lost 3.69% at Rs1,290, HDFC dropped nearly 3.29% at Rs2,198 and ONGC slumped 3.06% at Rs837.10. Select front-line counters ended in the green. M&M rose 1.11% at Rs576.45, while Wipro and Cipla closed with moderate gains.

Reality stocks witnessed a steep fall. Anant Raj plummeted 7.67% at Rs154.10, while Unitech crashed 5.82% at Rs188.60. Phoenix Mill at Rs241, Indiabulls Realty at Rs373.60, Puravankara at Rs190, Ansal infrastructure at Rs99.10, Mahindra Life at Rs541.50 and DLF at Rs478.20 tumbled over 2-5% each. Among the Bankex stocks Indian Overseas Bank plunged 7.54% at Rs109.80, Kotak Bank fell by 5.49% at Rs614.55, Bank of India lost 4.99% at Rs267.60, Punjab National Bank shed 4.99% at Rs435.25 and Axis Bank declined 4.67% at Rs718.10.

Over 1.77 crore Niraj Cement shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Chambal Fertilisers (1.03 crore shares), Anu’s Laboratories (0.85 crore shares), IFCI (0.71 crore shares) and Reliance Petroleum (0.67 crore shares).Global meltdown leads to market crash