Sensex sheds 52 points

The weakness in the global indices made the investors nervous and triggered a sell-off in the domestic market. The market opened on a bearish note at 13539, down 133 points. By mid-morning trades, the Sensex managed to pare some losses and touched an intra-day high of 13658, still down 14 points. However, the index succumbed to the selling in information technology, auto and technology stocks. Some buying at lower levels towards the close saw the Sensex recover a little and end the session with losses of 52 points at 13620 while the Nifty closed at 3998, down 14 points.

The market breadth was weak. Of the 2,591 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,357 stocks declined, 1,151 stocks advanced and 83 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in negative territory. The BSE IT Index was the biggest loser and slipped 1.49% at 4974 followed by the BSE Teck Index (down 0.94% at 3643) and the BSE Auto Index (down 0.69% at 4810). However, the BSE Bankex gained 0.56% at 6849 followed by the BSE FMCG Index (up 0.50% at 1812) and the BSE HC Index (up 0.29% at 3773).

Among the laggards ACC was down 3.51% at Rs788, Satyam Computers declined 2.98% at Rs448, Bajaj Auto shed 2.23% at Rs2,441, BHEL dropped 2% at Rs2,503, HDFC lost 1.91% at Rs1,564 and Infosys fell 1.84% at Rs2,040. However, select heavyweights attracted decent buying support. SBI added 1.72% at Rs1,053, ITC rose 1.24% at Rs159 and Hero Honda gained 1.10% at Rs656.

IT stocks witnessed selling pressure. Wipro dropped 1.25% at Rs579. i-flex Solutions, HCL Technologies and TCS ended with marginal losses.

Over 1.21 crore Tata Teleservices shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (97.82 lakh shares), Dish TV (81 lakh shares), GV films (67.42 lakh shares) and Advanta (58.85 lakh shares).

Advanta topped the value list with a turnover of Rs503 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs205 crore), ICRA (Rs177 crore), SBI (Rs94 crore) and Aptech (Rs90 crore).