Sensex slumps 2% breaks 17000

Today's major news

Pantaloon Retail raises Rs500 crore; the stock ends 0.20% higher.

Bajaj Hindustan to increase power capacity; the stock slid 2.13%.

ITC reviewing options on EIH equity; EIH rises by 4.52%.

Infotech Enterprises to acquire two US firms; the stock closed the session 2.81% lower.

Wipro launches second facility in China; the stock sheds 2.22%.

Click here for more stories

Global signals

Following negative Asian cues, European markets opened with heavy losses of over 2% each. Debt problems in Dubai dragged the banking stocks while the mining and energy stocks slid on lower commodity prices. Major Asian indices that opened mixed closed in red with losses of 0.03-3.62% each. SGX Nifty fell by 106 points.

Today, the US markets are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Indian indices

The day of expiry of November futures contracts was marked with heavy bloodshed on the Dalal Street. The Sensex that opened almost flat, slumped in the mid-session as global indicators turned heavily negative, while the expiry brought heavy selling in banking and oil & gas stocks that fell the most losing over 2%. The Sensex closed the session well below the significant psychological level of 17000 on a day when the markets recorded highest ever turnover and closed at 16855 after hitting the low of 16809. Nifty closed marginally above 5000 levels at 5006, down 103 points.

Sensex sentiment

The market breadth, the number of gaining stocks to losing ones, was heavily tilled in favour of bears. Out of 2,817 stocks traded on the BSE, 864 stocks advanced, whereas 1,877 stocks declined. Seventy-six stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Bears spared none of the 13 sector indices on the BSE, with the BSE Bankex (down 2.64%) and BSE Oil & Gas (down 2.30%) being hit the worst. All the other remaining indices suffered losses in the range of 0.34% to 2.24%.

On stocks’ front, Jet Airways topped the chart surging by 5.77% followed by India Cements (up 5.25%). EIH, Hindustan Zinc and Lupin were up by over 3% each. Among losers, Sintex Industries slid the most by 6.29%, followed by Sterling Biotech that fell by 5.26% and GVK Power & Infrastructure that shed 4.65%.

Viewing volumes

The market today witnessed the highest ever F&O turnover, while second highest turnover for the cash markets. On stock turnover front, over 1.21 crore shares of IFCI changed hands on BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (0.90 crore shares), Unitech (0.67 crore shares), Tata Steel (0.46 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (0.43 crore shares).