Sensex drops by 235 points

The Sensex ended the day with a loss of 235 points after crashing to a low of 14,706 during intra-day trades. The market crashed by over 400 points in line with the other major global indices as US subprime fears played on the investors’ sentiment. Despite gaining over 150 points in Friday's trades, the Sensex resumed 245 points lower at 14,893. It tanked by another 187 points to touch the day's low of 14,706 on relentless selling in metal, IT, capital goods and tech stocks. The Sensex managed to recover around 200 points in late trades, but still ended with a loss of 235 points at 14,903. The Nifty shed 1.41% or 62 points to close at 4,340.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,662 stocks traded on the BSE 1,493 stocks declined, 1,103 stocks advanced and 66 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Realty Index tumbled 3.16%, the BSE IT Index slipped 2.26%, the BSE Teck lost 2.06% and the BSE CG Index was down 1.82%. However, the BSE FMCG Index gained marginally.

Several index heavyweights came under selling pressure and ended in the red. Hindalco was the major loser and tumbled by 3.05% at Rs157. ICICI Bank at Rs888, Maruti Udyog at Rs825, Reliance Communication at Rs532, L&T at Rs2,449, Infosys at Rs1,867 and Wipro at Rs458 slumped around 2-3% each.

Select counters logged significant gains on fresh buying support. SBI bucked the downtrend and gained 2.80% at Rs1,682. ITC was up 1.77% at Rs172, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's Lab, TCS and M&M gained marginally.

Over 3.69 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Alpa Laboratories (90.64 lakh shares), Reliance Natural Resources (80.94 lakh shares), Nagarjuna Fertilizers (53.11 lakh shares) and Manglore Chemicals & Fertilizers (50.59 lakh shares).

IFCI registered a turnover of Rs227 crore on the BSE followed by SBI (Rs219 crore), Orbit Corporation (Rs157 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs146 crore) and GMR Infrastructure (Rs124 crore).