Market trims 256 points

The market slipped further as selling backed by substantial intra-day volatility continued for the sixth straight session. The Sensex slid sharply in mid-morning trades witnessing a wild intra-day swing of 493 points in the first half of the trading session. It crashed sharply to the day’s low of 13,128 after touching an early high of 13,621. Although some of the losses were erased on stock-specific gains, the Sensex closed with losses of 1.89% or 256 points at 13,263. Nifty lost 67 points to close at 4,008.

The market breadth was expectedly negative. Of the 2,710 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,741 stocks declined, while 885 stocks advanced. 84 stocks ended unchanged.

All the 13 sectoral indices posted losses for the day with the BSE Realty, BSE Bankex, BSE Metal index and BSE FMCG index shedding over 3-4% each.

Among the Sensex stocks, Sterlite Industries tumbled 8.04% at Rs439.30, Ranbaxy Laboratories lost 6.60% at Rs379.10, and ICICI Bank declined by 5.25% at Rs560.30. ITC slumped 5.07% at Rs184.40, HDFC Bank slipped 3.71% at Rs1,184.40, SBI tanked 3.59% at Rs1,528.65 and DLF fell 3.29% at Rs408.70. Reliance Industries at Rs1,873.60, Tata Consultancy Services at Rs728.80, Tata Steel at Rs475, JP Associates at Rs136.60 and Reliance Communications at Rs358.35 dropped 2% each. However, Tata Motors gained 4.84% at Rs417.70, ONGC surged 2.80% at Rs975.35, Wipro moved up 2.04% at Rs399, and ACC, Infosys Technologies, Maruti Suzuki India and Mahindra & Mahindra ended with marginal gains.

Reality stocks fared badly on the bourses. Unitech dropped 8.78% at Rs127.75, Orbit Corporation declined 8.27% at Rs218.05, HDFC lost 7.12% at Rs213.90 and Indabulls Realestate slipped 6% at Rs210. Peninsula Land stocks also witnessed heavy selling pressure. Sobha Developers, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers, Ansal Properties & Infrastructure and Phoenix Mill were down by 2-4% each.

Over 1.41 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.05 crore shares), ICICI Bank (0.72 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals (0.60 crore shares) and GVK Power & Infrastructure (0.58 lakh shares).