Sensex wraps up its longest winning streak

The market took a halt after having recorded gains for eleven consecutive sessions that had lifted the Sensex to a record peak above 17,950. Tracking the weak Asian markets, the Sensex resumed the session with a negative gap of 47 points at 17,800 and continued moving southwards. As selling intensified by the afternoon in banking, FMCG and oil stocks, the Sensex touched the day's low of 17,495 below the 17,500 mark. The market saw a sharp upmove thereafter but the widespread selling assured that the Sensex remains in the negative territory. The Sensex finally ended the session with a loss of 70 points at 17,777, while the Nifty dropped by two points to close at 5,209.

The breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,829 stocks traded on the BSE 1,612 stocks declined, 1,164 stocks advanced and 53 stocks ended unchanged. However, most of the sectoral indices of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) ended in positive territory. The BSE CD index rallied sharply and gained 2.75% at 4,870. The BSE Metal index, the BSE CG index, the BSE Auto index, the BSE Oil and the BSE Realty index added over 0.50%-1% each. However, the Bankex index slipped 1.44% while the BSE FMCG index, the BSE IT index and the BSE PSU index slipped marginally.

Index heavyweight ONGC triggered a major sell-off in the market and tumbled by 3.77% at Rs986. Among the other major losers, HDFC dropped 3.65% at Rs2,500, ICICI Bank declined by 2.45% at Rs1,061, Wipro lost 1.99% at Rs461, Hindalco shed 1.84% at Rs176, M&M slumped by 1.61% at Rs758, Grasim slipped by 1.52% at Rs2,590 and ITC dipped by 1.33% at Rs185. However, NTPC managed to report gains and moved up by 4.33% at Rs226, Tata Steel advanced 2.94% at Rs865, Cipla added 2.19% at Rs189 and Maruti Udyog gained 2.10% at Rs1,041.

Over 2.57 crore Himachal Futuristic Communication shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (2.54 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (2.45 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.67 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (1.66 crore shares).

Reliance Energy was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs463 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs242 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs231 crore), Unitech (Rs186 crore) and DLF (Rs175 crore).