Markets plunge

The 30-stock Sensex of the BSE resumed with gains of 300 points in early trades and touched an intra-day high of 10,945. However it could not hold on to the gains and drifted into the negative territory. The market appeared extremely bearish as the trading session progressed. Hectic selling in heavyweight, oil & gas, metal, realty and capital goods stocks in afternoon dragged the index to the day's low of 10,052. The Sensex ended 511 points lower at 10,120, while Nifty lost 147 points to close at 2,995. All the Sensex stocks, bar three, closed in the negative territory. Reliance Industries tumbled 12.76% at Rs1,269, Tata Steel faltered 10.05% at Rs215.75, JP Associates lost 10.01% at Rs80.50, Reliance Communications dropped 9.50% at Rs226.70, DLF slipped 8.79% at Rs264.65, HDFC shed 8.63% at Rs1,750.95, Grasim Industries slumped 7.28% at Rs1,049.45, Sterlite Industries fell 7.20% at Rs268.25 and ACC declined 7% at Rs470.95. Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Hindalco Industries and Reliance Infrastructure shed 4-6% each. The market breadth was extremely negative. Of the 2,638 stocks traded on the BSE, where 1,565 stocks declined, 1,000 stocks advanced. Seventy three stocks ended unchanged. All the 13 sectoral indices except BSE HC posted losses for the day. BSE Oil & Gas was the biggest loser and dropped 9.44% followed by BSE Metal (down 6.88%), BSE Realty (down 5.64%) and BSE CG (down 4.42%). Over 3.69 crore GVK Power & Infrastructure shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (3.46 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.76 crore shares), IFCI (1.29 crore shares) and Reliance Petroleum (1.19 crore shares). Valuewise, Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs552 crore followed by ICICI Bank (Rs275 crore), State Bank of India (Rs239 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs222 crore) and Suzlon Energy (Rs216 crore).