Sensex recovers after crashing by 1,744 points

The BSE Sensex opened with a negative gap of 1,014 points at 18,038 on the back of the Sebi's discussion paper to clamp down on participatory notes, while the NSE Nifty opened marginally ten points down and dipped to 524 points. Although the market remained in negative territory throughout the trading session, yet the Sensex pared some of the losses and wrapped up the session with a loss of 336 points at 18715 while the Nifty shed 109 points to close at 5559.

The market breadth was extremely weak. Of the 2,724 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,753 stocks declined, 925 stocks advanced and 46 stocks remained unchanged. All the sectoral indices plummeted sharply. The BSE PSU Index dropped 3.84%, the BSE Bankex shed 3.67%, the BSE Reality Index declined 3.50%, the BSE Metal Index dropped 2.70%, the BSE CD Index was down 2.45% and the BSE Auto Index declined 2.19%. The remaining indices were down around 1-2% each.

Among the Sensex gainers, TCS leads with a gain of 2.53% at Rs1,095, Satyam Computer Services moved up 1.63% at Rs457, and Reliance, Infosys Technologies and Hindalco also gained marginally. While Reliance Energy tumbled 7.46% at Rs1,762, ACC plunged 5.05% at Rs1,202, SBI slumped 4.98% at Rs1,828, BHEL dropped 4.69% at Rs2,283, NTPC shed 4.52% at Rs221, Mahindra and Mahindra lost 4.23% at Rs780 and Tata Steel declined 4.18% at Rs869. The other front-line stocks were also down 2-3% each.

Dhanus Technologies was listed on the BSE at Rs295. Hectic activity saw the counter lose momentum and touch a low of Rs251. The counter closed at Rs311 on strong volumes of over 39.71 lakh shares on the BSE.

Over 4.76 crore Power Grid shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (3.68 crore shares), RPL (2.67 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (2.21 crore shares) and IFCI (1.22 crore shares).