Sensex 324 down

Sensex ended the day with a loss of 324 points after crashing to a low of 8,947 during intra-day trades. The market crashed over 400 points in line with the other major global indices, as US recession fears played on investors’ sentiment. Despite gaining over 300 points in Wednesday's trades, Sensex resumed 272 points lower at 9,098. It tanked by another 151 points to touch the day's low of 8,947 on relentless selling in banking, realty, metal and technology stocks. Sensex managed to recover around 98 points in late trades, but still ended with a loss of 324 points at 9,047. Nifty shed 99 points to close at 2,737.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,447 stocks traded on BSE 1,649 stocks declined, whereas 698 stocks advanced. Hundred stocks ended unchanged. Among sectoral indices BSE Bankex tumbled 5.69%, BSE Realty slipped 4.72%, BSE Metal lost 4.53% and BSE IT was down 4.11%.

Several index heavyweights came under selling pressure and ended in the red. JP Associates was the major loser and tumbled 8.03% at Rs64.70. Tata Steel at Rs197.80, ICICI Bank at Rs408.85, Sterlite Industries at Rs253.70, Reliance Communications at Rs174.25, HDFC Bank at Rs924.50 and Tata Consultancy Services at Rs510 slumped around 5-7% each. However Grasim Industries gained 0.85% at Rs1,294.40 and Maruti Suzuki India gained 0.54% at Rs599.08.

Over 5.60 crore shares of Satyam Consultancy Services changed hands on BSE followed by Reliance Industries (2.82 crore shares), Unitech (1.47 crore shares), JP Associates (70.87 lakh shares) and GVK Power & Infrastructure (65.33 lakh shares).