Selling spree continues

The market took a sharp dip after an initial surge and continued moving southwards, as shares across sectors came under the grip of relentless selling pressure.

The session was marked with extreme volatility. After a firm opening at 8535, around 89 points above its previous close of 8446, the markets failed to capitalise on the gains and drifted into the negative territory in the afternoon. Heavyweights as well as banking, gas & oil, power, FMCG and capital goods stocks contributed to the fall and dragged the index to an intra-day low of 8167. Sensex finally closed ended 2.94% or 249 points lower at 8198, while Nifty pared 69 points to 2577.

Market breadth was extremely negative with losing stocks outnumbering the gainers by a wide margin. Of the 2,468 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,679 stocks declined, whereas 703 stocks advanced. Eighty stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex shed 4.15% followed by BSE Oil & Gas (down 3.71%), BSE Power (down 3.26%) and BSE FMCG (down 3.26%).

Of the 30 stocks trading in Sensex basket, only five stocks managed to close in the positive territory. Among the major losers, Ranbaxy Laboratories tumbled by 9.27% at Rs144.40, ICICI Bank plunged 5.17% at Rs269.60, Tata Power slumped 5.07% at Rs640.10, Reliance Industries dropped 5% at Rs1,149.10, HDFC Bank shed 4.54% at Rs800.70, Hindustan Unilever lost 4.50% at Rs230.05 and Bharat Heavy Electricals declined by 3.84% at Rs1,284.30. Other frontline stocks were down by 1-3% each. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries however bucked the downtrend and rose 2.19% at Rs997.60 while JP Associates at Rs66.70, Tata Consultancy Services gained 0.42% at Rs463, Wipro advanced 0.19% at Rs206.25 and Sterlite Industries at Rs245.50 was up around 0.04% each.

Over 86.85 lakh shares of Satyam Computer Services changed hands on the BSE followed by Punjab National Bank (81 lakh shares), Unitech ( 78 lakh shares), ICICI Bank (77