Sensex dips 299 points on profit booking

The Indian markets close the trade with losses after three days of gains. The Sensex lost by 299 points and the Nifty fell by 94 points.

Major headlines

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Indian indices

The Indian markets lost ground after three days of gains and closed the trade with losses. Heavy profit booking across the board in the second half of trade dragged the markets to intraday lows. Major heavyweight draggers were RIL, SBI, Hindalco, Infosys, ICICI Bank, DLF, HDFC Bank, TCS. Losses in the metal, banking, technology, oil & gas and realty stocks weighed on the sentiments. Weakness in the global stocks also put pressure on the markets. The Sensex slipped below the 17000 mark and the Nifty fell below 5100 level.

Sensex movements: The Sensex started the session 24 points higher at 17190 and immediately hit the day’s high 17212. The index remained directionless in the first half of the trade. In the afternoon session, the index witnessed pressure on heavy losses in the metal, banking, oil & gas, technology and realty shares. All-round selling alongwith weak European cues dragged the index to day’s low of 16831 in late trade. The Sensex closed at 16867, down by 299 points and the Nifty stood at 5059, down by 94 points.

Market sentiment:

The market breadth was in favour of declines. Of the 2970 stocks traded on the BSE, 1203 (40.51%) rose, 1663 (55.99%) fell and 104 (3.50%) remained unchanged.

Viewing volumes

Industrial finance company IFCI was traded the most, with over 0.56 crore shares changing hands on the BSE. Following that Indian telecommunication company - Reliance Communications (0.49 crore shares), Indian shipbuilder - Pipavav Shipyard (0.48 crore shares), an integrated infrastructure development company - Lanco Infratech (0.47 crore shares) and India's second largest developer - Unitech (0.33 crore shares).

Sectoral & stock screening

All the sectoral indices closed lower except BSE CD up by 0.37%. BSE Metal was the worst performer falling by 3.16%, followed by BSE Bankex down by 2.35% and BSE Oil & Gas down by 2.30%. Remaining losers stood in the range of 0.16-2.29%.

In 'A' group stocks, top gainers — SKS Microfinance rose by 5%, Pipavav Shipyard surged by 3.94% and Hindustan Copper up by 2.56%. Top losers — Reliance Communications down by 6.32%, Jindal Saw fell by 5.63% and Lanco Infratech declined by 5.59%.

Global signals

The European stocks fell on Friday, with investors worried about a seeming lack of action on the part of the Federal Reserve and as euro-zone sovereign-debt credit default swaps edged wider, indicating concerns about the region's debt crisis still weigh heavily.

The Asian stocks closed lower on Friday as a $447 billion jobs package from US President Barack Obama failed to entice investors back into equities amid concerns that political wrangling could see it watered down.

The US stock index futures pointed to a lower open on the Wall Street on Friday.

Market Outlook: In the US, Wholesale Trade data will be released on Friday.