Sensex plummets 341 points

The market witnessed the second crash today after witnessing a fall of 620 points on Friday. Following a steep fall in global stock markets led by fears of a hike in crude oil prices, the Sensex resumed on a bearish note at 13,791, 11 points below its last close of 13,802. By mid-morning trades, the Sensex shed around 400 points on across-the-board selling pressure. The market started to deteriorate further towards the close, as fresh bout of selling saw the Sensex plummet over 350 points and touch the day's low of 13,406. The Sensex dropped 2.47% and was down 341 points for the day at 13,462. The Nifty shed 96 points at 4,041.

The market breadth was heavily tilted in favour of the losers as 2,103 stocks declined, while only 546 stocks advanced and 42 stocks remained unchanged on the BSE. All the sectoral indices were battered on the BSE except information technology (IT), fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and health care (HC) stocks. The BSE Realty index lost heavily and dropped 6.81% followed by the BSE consumer durables (CD) index (down 4.71%), the BSE Oil & Gas index (down 4.03%), the BSE Power index (down 3.55%), the BSE capital goods (CG) index (down 3.46%) and the BSE Bankex index (down 3.43%). The second-rung benchmark indices the BSE mid-cap index and the BSE small-cap index tanked over 3% each.

Only 8 stocks from 30 Sensex stocks managed to end in the green. Among the major losers Reliance Infrastructure tanked by 11.47% at Rs751.05. ACC slumped by 9.80% at Rs512, Ambuja Cement shed 6.83% at Rs73.50, Grasim Industries crumbled by 6.66% at Rs1,815. DLF dropped 6.60% at Rs389, Reliance Communications slipped by 6.58% at Rs433.10, Tata Motors plunged 5.03% at Rs416 and Mahindra & Mahindra fell by 5% at Rs477. Other front-line stocks also declined by over the range of 0.50-4% each.

Realty stocks took a heavy pounding. Housing Development & Infrastructure plunged by 10.27% at Rs387, Indiabulls Real Estate tumbled by 8.56% at Rs271.20, Peninsula Land lost 7.78% at Rs51, Ansal Infrastructure by 7.18% at Rs69.15 and Unitech declined by 6.65% at Rs170.65. DLF, Sobha Developers, Omaxe, Phoenix Mill, Mahindra Life, Akruti City and Anant Raj crashed around 4-5% each. CD stocks, too, were hammered on the bourses. Rajesh Export slumped by 10.36% at Rs58.40, Videocon Industries dropped 6.12% at Rs275.40 and Blue Star fell by 3.89% at Rs374.55.

Over 2.37 crore MVL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Petroleum (1.51 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.44 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers (84.61 lakh shares) and IFCI (81.62 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs379 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Capital (Rs262 crore), MVL (Rs210 crore), Niraj Cement (Rs148 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs141 crore).