Downcast session

The 30-stock Sensex of the BSE witnessed a 122-point pullback yesterday on the back of strong buying support. However, the bears hit back strongly today and triggered a major sell-off. Tracking subdued Asian markets, the Sensex began the session marginally above its previous close, but soon slipped on sustained selling in frontline stocks and continued it down-move for the major part of the day. After falling below the 13,500 mark to touch the day's low of 13,431, the market moved in a range with a negative bias. The market witnessed buying towards the close and the Sensex ended the session with a loss of 145 points at 13,547, whereas Nifty shed 51 points and closed at 4,111.

All the sectoral indices except the BSE Auto index ended negative. The BSE IT dropped over 2%, while the BSE Teck, the BSE Realty, the BSE Power, the BSE CD, the BSE Metal and the BSE HC were down over 1% each.

The breadth of the mark was extremely negative. Of the 2,665 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,688 stocks declined, while only 899 stocks advanced. 78 stocks ended unchanged. Among the 30 Sensex stocks, 23 stocks ended in the red. Wipro was a major loser and tumbled by 4.81% at Rs352.90. Ranbaxy Laboratories at Rs296.20, Hindalco Industries at Rs104.50, Grasim Industries at Rs1,867.40, Tata Consultancy Services at Rs690.20 slumped over 3% each. Among the other major losers, DLF was down by 2.81% at Rs389, ACC dropped 2.65% at Rs611.15, Bharti Airtel lost 2.44% at Rs790.65, Tata Power fell 2.39% at Rs999.45 and ITC declined by 2.31% at Rs188.40.

Over 1.12 crore Tata Steel shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (0.89 crore shares), IFCI (0.72 crore shares), Austral Coke (0.72 crore shares) and Sesa Goa (0.54 crore shares)