Sensex erases its lows but sheds 96 points at close

Weak global cues and political tensions back home led the market open lower today. The Sensex was down 233 points at the open and remained subdued, as investors booked profits after the recent gains. IT, Teck, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer durables (CD) stocks took the major beating. The index faltered under the selling pressure by afternoon and slipped to the day's low of 13,050. While the market fluctuated sharply thereafter, the firm bullish sentiment and strong buying in heavyweights and capital goods (CG) stocks in the late trades helped the Sensex erase most of its losses. The Sensex finally ended the session by shedding 1.30% or 176 points at 13,350. The Nifty slipped 41 points at 3,989.

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outpacing the gainers in the ratio of 1.20:1. Of the 2,656 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,408 stocks declined, 1,167 stocks advanced and 81 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the red. The BSE IT index dropped 3.11% at 4,046 followed by the BSE Teck index (down 2.50% at 3,017) and the BSE FMCG index (down 2.02% at 1,952). However, the BSE CG index gained 1.36% at 10,854 and the BSE PSU index (up 0.82% at 5,724).

Heavyweights led the fall in the Sensex. Wipro slipped by 4.61% at Rs419.70, Tata Motors slumped by 4.13% at Rs376.35, Infosys shed 3.62% at Rs1,736, ITC lost 3.24% at Rs171.85, Grasim Industries was down 3.19% at Rs1,670.70 and Reliance Infrastructure tumbled 3.03% at Rs754. Among the gainers ACC jumped 6.21% at Rs527, Mahindra & Mahindra gained 3.92% at Rs515.80, NTPC rose 3.60% at Rs161.20, SBI was up by 2.79% at Rs1,204.45 and BHEL was up 2.18% at Rs1,498.25, while Hindalco and L&T ended with modest gains.

Over 2.84 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (2.47 crore shares), First Winner Industries (1.35 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (99.92 lakh shares) and Chambal Fertilisers (91.83 lakh shares).