Market slips after two-session rally

The northward journey of the market finally got derailed on the third day of the trading week, after a sharp bout of selling in afternoon ensured that the market remains in negative territory till the close. The last two trading sessions had seen the market register gains of over 500 points on the back of firm international markets. The overnight fall in the US markets and mixed Asian indices saw brisk activity in early trades, with the Sensex witnessing a swing of over 400 points. After resuming 47 points higher at 15,744, the index eased on profit taking and remained range-bound with a negative bias in the first half of the trading session. A wave of selling in heavyweights and select sectoral stocks triggered a major fall, with the index slipping nearly below the 15,400 mark and touching the day's low of 15,390. The Sensex however managed to erase some losses on selective buying and closed the session with losses of 275 points at 15,422, while Nifty declined by 71 points at 4,582.

The broader market was in red. Of the 2,730 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,405 stocks declined, 1,254 stocks advanced and 71 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices only two ended in green. BSE Realty was the biggest laggard and moved down 3.50% at 5,885.75 followed by BSE Bankex index (down 3.45% at 7,306.44) and BSE IT index (down 2.39% at 4333.94). However, BSE FMCG index gained 0.37% at 2,310.11 followed by BSE Auto index (up 0.11% at 4,179.54).

Among the laggards, ICICI Bank was down 4.25% at Rs771, HDFC Bank declined by 3.40% at Rs1,161.20, Tata Steel shed 3.18% at Rs818, Larsen & Toubro dropped 3.12% at Rs2,725, Jaiprakash Associates lost 2.93% at Rs180.50 and Reliance Infrastructure fell 2.83% at Rs1,065.20. However, select heavyweights attracted decent buying support. Ambuja Cement surged 4.80% at Rs90.65, Ranbaxy Laboratories rose 2.88% at Rs598.20, Grasim Industries jumped 2.38% at Rs2,177.25, Maruti Suzuki India added 1.24% at Rs765 and Hindalco gained 0.96% at Rs174.30..

Select realty stocks witnessed considerable selling pressure. Anant Raj Industries dropped 7.46% at Rs166.90, indiabulls Real Estate lost 6.07% at Rs397.90, Puravankara Projects declined by 4.44% at Rs200.35, Sobha Developers slipped by 3.36% at Rs395.45, Unitech lost 3.31% at Rs200.25 and Phoenix Mills was down 3.04% at Rs255.30..

Over 1.49 crore Anu’s Laboratories shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.39 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers (1.30 crore shares), RNRL (1.27 crore shares), IFCI (1.14 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.05 crore shares).