Market slips below 14000

After yesterday's marginal gains the market began the trading session on a weak note tracking the mixed global indices. The Sensex opened with a negative gap of ten points at 14219 and slipped below 14000 on sustained selling in heavyweight, oil, banking and metal stocks. The market received a breather as the inflation for the week ended April 14 remained unchanged from the week ended April 7 and the Sensex regained the 14000 level. However, unabated selling in pharma, oil and metal stocks dragged the Sensex to the day's low of 13885. The Sensex finally closed with losses of 320 points at 13909 while the Nifty shed 94 points and closed at 4083.

The broader market was extremely weak. Of the 2,572 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,682 stocks declined, 819 stocks advanced and 71 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices ended in negative territory. The BSE HC Index dropped 3.93% at 3696, the BSE Oil & Gas Index shed 3.04% at 7078, the BSE Bankex slipped 2.34% at 7087 and the BSE Metal Index was down 2.32% at 9726.

Among the major losers Cipla slumped 14.27% at Rs217, Bharti Airtel dipped (despite strong quarterly numbers) by 4.15% at Rs826, SBI declined 4.12% at Rs1,099, Tata Steel shed 4.07% at Rs538, Reliance Industries lost 3.67% at Rs1,538, ONGC declined 3.23% at Rs929 and ICICI Bank was down 3.15% at Rs934. However, Satyam Computer notched up gains of 1.52% at Rs467, Wipro rose 0.52% at Rs566 and NTPC added 0.25% at Rs159.

Pharma stocks came under sharp selling pressure. Glenmark Pharma tumbled 4.53% at Rs638, Sun Pharma slipped 3.25% at Rs1,036, Glaxo slumped 3.22% at Rs1,162, Matrix Labs fell 3.02% at Rs195, Orchid Chemicals lost 2.82% at Rs259, Aventis declined 2.51% at Rs1,235, Wockhardt shed 2.31% at Rs419 and Cadila was down 2.17% at Rs319.

Over 2.06 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (1.02 crore shares), Cipla (66.62 lakh shares), Orbit Corporation (59.81 lakh shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (41.82 lakh shares).

Value-wise Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs187 crore on the BSE followed by Cipla (Rs144 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs115 crore), Orbit Corporation (Rs111 crore) and Bharti Airtel (Rs82 crore).