Sensex drops 352 points

The market received a severe jolt in the last hour of the trading session, as panic selling across the board saw the Sensex shed 352 points and plunged below the 16,000 mark. The Sensex began the day on a positive note at 16,591, 175 points above its last close and maintained a mixed trend during the major part of the session on lack of buying interest. The market began to crumble towards the close and gradually came under sharp hammering on sustained selling pressure in heavyweight, reality, public sector undertaking (PSU), metal, power and bankex stocks and slipped below 16,000. The Sensex ended the session with losses of 352 points at 16,063, while Nifty shed 131 points and closed at 4,740.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,716 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,066 stocks declined, 600 stocks advanced and 50 stocks ended unchanged. Barring the BSE Auto index, all other sectoral indices slipped from higher levels and ended in negative territory. The BSE Realty index was the major loser and dropped 4% at 6,728 followed by the BSE PSU index (down 3.84% at 6,808), the BSE Metal index (down 3.66% at 16,295) and the BSE Power index (down 3.66% at 2,829).

Among the major losers, NTPC dropped 6.39% at Rs161.25, ACC crumbled 5.23% at Rs626.10, Hindalco declined 5.05% at Rs182.25, Reliance Infra slipped 4.90% at Rs1,170.40, TCS tumbled 4.33% at Rs984.65, BHEL shed 4% at Rs1,595.65 and Tata Steel lost 3.86% at Rs868.05. HDFC Bank, Reliance Communications, ONGC, SBI, DLF, Ambuja Cement, ICICI Bank, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Wipro, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Cipla and Reliance Industries were down over 1-3% each. However, Maruti rose 2.85% at Rs786.30, ITC added 1.01% at Rs219.85, Mahindra & Mahindra gained 0.18%at Rs593.55 and Bharti Airtel advanced 0.14% at Rs877.70.

Over 1.84 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.60 crore shares), Spice Tele (1.17 crore shares), Chambal Fertiliser(1.14 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (94.69 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Essar Oil registered a turnover of Rs183 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Capital (Rs180 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs173 crore), GSS America (Rs142 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs142 crore).