Sensex slips on weak overseas markets

After yesterday's strong upsurge, the market failed to rally further as weak Asian markets weighed down on the sentiment. Barring the capital goods and consumer durable counters selling was visible in all other sectors. The Sensex opened with a negative gap of seven points at 14501 and recovered to touch the day's high of 14576. The Nifty index went into the negative territory after hitting a record high of over 4,300 level in early morning trades. Major gainers that helped the Nifty to cross the 4,300 mark were L&T, HDFC, BHEL and SBI. The market entered into negative territory again as the participants turned sceptical after the Chinese market crashed over 6% on account of a hike in stamp duty. The market tried to recover from the fall in the afternoon, surrendered to heavy selling in front-line socks and touched the intra-day low of 14379. The Sensex finally closed the session at 14411, down 97 points. The Nifty shed 43 points to close at 4250.

The breadth of the market was extremely weak. Of the 2,652 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,594 stocks declined, 991 stocks advanced and 67 stocks ended unchanged. The sectoral indices were largely weak. The BSE Teck index lost 1.95%, the BSE IT index declined by 1.93% and the BSE FMCG shed 1.88%. However, the BSE CD index rose 1.59% and the BSE CG index jumped by 1.26%.

Several heavyweights took a sharp tumble on late selling pressure. Reliance Communication slipped and shed 3.79% at Rs501, Reliance Energy tumbled by 3.71% at Rs535, HDFC Bank dropped 3.56% at Rs1,105, BHEL declined by 3.08% at Rs2,768, Hindalco slumped by 2.73% at Rs141, Infosys lost 2.42% at Rs1,904, Maruti Udyog slipped by 2.10% at Rs803, HLL dipped 2.07% at Rs198 and Cipla shed 1.74% at Rs215. Select counters, however, ended in the green. L&T zoomed 7.39% at Rs1,994, Hero Honda added 1.70% at Rs697 and HDFC advanced 1.08% at Rs1,833 while Bajaj Auto, Gujarat Ambuja Cement, SBI and Tata Motors closed with marginal gains.

Teck stocks declined on sharp selling pressure. Patni Computer tumbled by 7.63% at Rs522, Inox Leisure dropped 4.98% at Rs135, Zee Entertainment shed 4.94% at Rs297 and Balaji Telefilms lost 4.05% at Rs213.

Consumer durable stocks, however, held ground and ended at higher levels. Videocon Industries flared up by 5.10% at Rs459, Classic Diamonds added 3.45% at Rs390, Samtel Color advanced by 2.48% at Rs17, LLoyd Electric moved up by 2.36% at Rs163 and Whirlpool gained 1.15% at Rs35.

Over 1.45 crore MIC Electric shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.41 crore shares), IFCI (71.78 lakh shares), JP Hydro (69.94 lakh shares) and Orbit Corporation (60.12 lakh shares).

Value-wise MIC Electric registered a turnover of Rs492 crore on the BSE followed by L&T (Rs218 crore), Orbit Corporation (Rs150 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs150 crore) and Infosys (Rs120 crore).