Down on frontlines

After last week’s strong upsurge, the market failed to rally further as weak Asian indices and overnight fall on US bourses weighed on the sentiment. Barring fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) stocks, selling was visible in all sectors--from realty to health care. Benchmark BSE-30 (Sensex) opened 73 points lower at 17062 and never recovered from the early slump. While the market moved in a range below 16900 for the better part of the trading session, the index witnessed a steep fall towards the closing hours and nearly breached the 16850-mark to touch the day's low of 16836. The Sensex ended the session 268 points lower at 16866 while Nifty shed 80 points to close at 5003.

The market breadth was negative. The number of declining stocks was twice the number of advancing stocks. Of the 2,831 stocks traded on the BSE 1,986 stocks declined, whereas 782 stocks advanced. Sixty-three stocks ended unchanged. Among sectoral indices, BSE Realty fell 3.53%, while BSE Teck, BSE Metal, BSE Bankex were down over 2% each. BSE FMCG bucked the downward trend gaining 1.47% for the day.

Heavyweights led the fall. Bharti Airtel dropped 8.05% to Rs400.30, Grasim Industries slumped 7.10% to Rs2,509.10, Hindalco Industries shed 6.75% to quote at Rs118.15, Reliance Communications lost 5.60% to trade at Rs300.20, DLF slipped by 3.95% to Rs422.75, Sterlite Industries tumbled 3.59% to Rs750.40, State Bank of India declined 3.53% to Rs2,131.90, Tata Motors was down 3.28% to Rs561.05, Maruti Suzuki India lost 3.17% to close at Rs1,598.60 and Jaiprakash Associates dropped 3.14% to Rs231.50 at closing bell. Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, ACC and Tata Power were down by 1-3%. Among gainers, ITC rose 2.58% to Rs238.50, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries surged 2.29% to Rs1,429.20 while Reliance Infrastructures, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero Honda Motors and Wipro ended with modest gains.

Over 1.56 crore shares of Ispat Industries changed hands on the BSE followed by Unitech (0.93 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (0.86 crore shares), Bharti Airtel (0.63 crore shares) and IFCI (0.60 crore shares).