Dreary trading

Markets took a breather, as investors remained on sidelines ahead of the corporate results season that begins this week. Sensex has lost almost 1,200 points in the last three sessions on the back of weak international markets. The market was range-bound throughout the day. Sensex resumed 68 points lower at 9,042, but gained amid volatile moves on buying in heavyweight and information technology stocks in afternoon and touched the day's high at 9,261. While market witnessed fluctuating trend for a while, the afternoon trades saw the index tumble below 9,000 mark to touch the day's low of 8,993 amid relentless selling pressure. Sensex finally ended the day 39 points lower at 9,071, while Nifty fell 28 points to close at 2,745.

The market breadth was extremely negative. Of the 2,498 stocks traded on BSE, 1,562 stocks declined, whereas 848 stocks advanced. Eighty eight stocks ended unchanged. Except BSE IT, BSE Teck, BSE CD, BSE FMCG and BSE Realty, all other sectoral indices were down around 0.16-1% each. BSE Oil & Gas, BSE Bankex, BSE Metal and BSE Power lost over 1% each.

Selling was rampant in several index heavyweights. Reliance Communications triggered a major sell-off in the market and tumbled by 6.59% at Rs168. Among other major losers, HDFC dropped 4.21% at Rs1,553, Tata Motors declined 4.11% at Rs155.25, ONGC lost 3.47% at Rs630.30, JP Associates shed 3.39% at Rs66.95, Hindalco Industries slumped 3.09% at Rs48.60, Hindustan Unilever slipped by 2.93% at Rs254.95 and Bharti Airtel dipped by 2.80% at Rs607.10. However, Infosys Technologies managed to report gains and jumped 6.36% at Rs1,230.20, Wipro advanced 6.05% at Rs241.10, Ranbaxy Laboratories added 4.57% at Rs216.40 and Tata Power gained 3.40% at Rs752.10.

Over 3.30 crore shares of Satyam changed hands on BSE followed by Rolta India (2.91 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.78 crore shares), Unitech (1.34 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (1.03 crore shares).