Sensex survives scam scare...Ends slightly down

Indian markets extended their losing streak to the fourth straight trading session and third consecutive week as investors remained worried about the fallout of the bribes-for-loans scam on the banking system and the real estate market. Today’s fall was led by persistent selling in Realty, Metals and Power stocks. The broader indices were among the worst hit today amid reports that brokers were offloading clients' shares to make up for the shortfall in margins. However, the BSE as well as the NSE clarified that there was no margin default on the part of any broker and that the trades were being settled on time.



The advance-decline ratio was absolutely in favor of the bears. On the BSE, 2508 stocks declined as against 485 advancing stocks while 79 stocks reminded unchanged.

"For the third day running, the bribes-for-loans scam continued to take a heavy toll on the Indian market as concerns about its impact on property prices sent realty shares into a tailspin. However, the banking index recovered from the session lows and IT shares bucked the negative trend. A weak finish for the Asian markets and fresh fall in the European markets also didn't help matters for the bulls. Also, there were reports of some new artillery firing being heard on the South Korean island, " says Amar Ambani, Head of Research (India Private Clients) - IIFL.

The BSE Sensex fell 182 points to close at 19,137 and the NSE Nifty lost 48 points to close at 5,752.

All the BSE sectoral indices ended in the red, the BSE Realty index was the top loser the index lost 5%, followed by BSE Consumer durables index fell 4% and the BSE Metal index slipped 2.5%. The broader indices ended in red as well, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down by 3% and BSE Small-Cap index declined 4.5%.

The European indices were trading mixed, the DAX in Germany was up 0.2%, the CAC 40 index in France was down 0.4% and FTSE index was trading higher by 0.2%.

Outside the frontline indices, the big losers in the broader market were Adani Ent, BGR Energy, LIC Housing Fin, IFCI and DB Realty. On the other hand, gainers included IRB Infra, Petronet Lng, OBC and Motherson Sumi.