Pull-back rally snaps

The market cooled off after having gains for three consecutive sessions that had lifted Sensex above 9000. Selling commenced after Sensex touched a new intra-day high of 9024 in early trades. Losing over 50 points by mid-morning, the market remained negative, but came close to erasing its losses in afternoon. However, the mood turned more bearish towards the close as selling in information technology, banking, oil & gas and teck stocks dragged the index around 8800 mark to an intra-day low of 8802. Sensex finally ended the session 0.89% or 80 points down at 8864, while Nifty lost 20 points to close at 2757.

Market breadth was positive. Of the 2,574 scrips traded on the BSE, 1,330 stocks advanced, whereas 1,137 stocks declined. One hundred and seven stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices on BSE nine ended negative. BSE Bankex led the slump shedding 2% for the day. BSE IT, BSE Oil & Gas, BSE Teck and BSE CD lost over 1% each.

Index heavyweight Tata Consultancy Services triggered a major sell-off in the market and the stock tumbled 4.31% to Rs497.40. Among other major losers State Bank of India dropped 3.87% at Rs949.60, JP Associates declined by 3.75% at Rs74.35, HDFC Bank lost 2.27% at Rs825.40, Ranbaxy Laboratories shed 2.03% at Rs144.95, Reliance Industries slumped by 1.98% at Rs1300.35, HDFC slipped by 1.77% at Rs1364.05 and DLF dipped by 1.76% at Rs159.10. Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, ACC, Grasim Industries, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Hindustan Unilever lost over 1% each. However, Tata Motors managed to report gains and moved up by 3.40% at Rs172.05 while Hindalco Industries added 2.34% at Rs43.70.

Over 1.92 crore shares of Rolta India changed hands on BSE followed by Unitech (1.81 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.65 crore shares), Cals Refineries (1.40 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (1.31 crore shares).