Sensex plummets 448 points

Weakness across global indices took heavy toll on the market and the Sensex lost 4.72% on across-the-board selling.

The downward journey of the market continued for the third straight session, as slump in global indices and concerns of hike in petro products made investors nervous, thereby triggering
a major sell off. Resuming on a bullish note at 15,993, 30 points above its last close of 15,963, the Sensex during mid afternoon accumulated losses of more than 521 points on across-the-board selling to touch the day's low of 15,442. The index however managed to erase its losses a bit and trade above 15,500 at the end of the session. After registering losses of 450 points in the last two sessions, the Sensex dropped 2.81% or 448 points to close at 15,515. The Nifty shed 130 points at 4,586.

All the sectoral indices were mauled and each declined by more than 1-5%. The BSE Realty index was the major loser and crashed by 5.01%, followed by the BSE Metal (down 4.98%), the BSE Power index (down

4.42%), the BSE Oil & Gas index (down 3.39%), the BSE Auto index (down 3.31%) and the BSE CG index (down 3.14%). The BSE second-rung benchmark indices the BSE mid-cap index and the BSE small-cap index tanked over 2% each.

The breadth of the market was heavily skewed in favour of losers. Of the 2,719 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,967 stocks declined, 676 stocks advanced and 76 stocks ended unchanged.
Except ONGC all the stocks in the Sensex basket ended at lower levels. Among the major losers Ambuja Cement crashed 5.46% at Rs87, Tata Steel plunged 5.36% at Rs812, HDFC Bank slumped 5.19% at Rs1,200, Maruti Suzuki crumbled 5.07% at Rs735, BHEL plummeted 4.99% at Rs1,456, Reliance Infra dropped 4.89% at Rs1,063.50, Tata Motors shed 4.87% at Rs537.95, DLF tanked 4.70% at Rs551.10 and Reliance Industries lost 4.14% at Rs2,285.10. Other heavyweight stocks also came under sustained selling pressure and lost around 2-3% each.

Realty stocks were battered. Akruti City tanked nearly 7.57% at Rs901, India Bulls plummeted 7.29% at Rs412.05, Omaxe slumped 5.61% at Rs185.95, Unitech dropped 5.52% at Rs207.20, HDFC lost 5.50% at Rs637.75 and Ansal Properties slipped by 4.86% at Rs118.55. Sobha Developers, DLF, Mahindra Life,
and Peninsula Land declined over 4-5% each.

Over 2.11 crore Gokul Refoils shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.78 crore shares), Anus Lab (1.64 crore shares), RPL (1.56 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.38 crore shares).