Sensex plunges 511 pts; RIL, Tata Steel suffer big losses
Tracking gains on Wall Street and in major Asian markets, equities opened on a rousing note on the major Indian bourses this morning. But then, the market went tumbling down soon thereafter as several blue chip stocks, led by index heavyweight Reliance Industries crashed sharply on a severe bout of selling pressure.
Global meltdown and stock market
Information technology, bank, pharma and select capital goods and power stocks did bounce back and pulled the market from lower levels in early afternoon trade, but another round of selling - this time the pressure was extremely severe - saw the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty plunging far deeper into the red. And the market never really recovered from the setback as selling continued right till the end as a weak trend on the European bourses and the fall of US index futures aided the bears in their pursuit.
Stockometer
The Sensex, which very nearly breached the 11,000 mark in early trade today - it shot up to a high of 10,945.41 - but nosedived to 10,051.52 during the fag end of the session, settled at 10,120.01 with a huge loss of 511.11 points or 4.81%.
Top gainers
The Nifty closed at 2994.95, near a day's low of 2971, with a loss of 147.15 points or 4.68%. Earlier, after opening at 3155.75, it had spurted to a high of 3240.55 in opening trade.
Worst losers
A marked downgrade in ratings and the company's decision to shut five of its polyester and petrochemical units took the wind out of heavyweight stock Reliance Industries today. The index major ended the session with a huge loss of 12.75% at Rs 1269.45. Tata Steel and Jaiprakash Associates lost over 10% today.
Reliance Communications, DLF, HDFC, Grasim Industries, Sterlite Industries, ACC, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro and Mahindra & Mahindra drifted down by 6% - 9.5%.
Bharti Airtel, Hindalco, Reliance Infrastructure, State Bank of India, Hindustan Unilever, BHEL, NTPC, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank also finished with sharp losses.
Infosys Technologies, ITC, ONGC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Power failed to hold gains and ended in the negative territory.
Wipro bucked the trend and posted a sharp gain of 2.75%. Satyam Computer Services gained a little over a quarter per cent. Maruti Suzuki closed with a small gain.
GAIL India went down by over 15%. SAIL lost 12.4%. Unitech ended with a loss of 11.55%. Reliance Petroleum, Ambuja Cements, HCL Technologies, ABB, Reliance Power, Idea Cellular, Tata Communications, Power Grid Corporation, Nalco, Zee Entertainment, BPCL and Cairn India also closed with sharp losses.
Sun Pharmaceuticals shot up by nearly 10.5%. Suzlon Energy gained 5.9%. Punjab National Bank and Hero Honda ended with handsome gains.
As midcap and smallcap stocks also tumbled on pressure, the market breadth turned quite negative this afternoon. Out of 2638 stocks traded on the BSE, 1565 stocks closed in the negative territory. 1,000 stocks posted gains and 73 stocks ended flat.
Sensex bucks global trend, sheds 511pts, RIL weighs
Source:Sify,BS,BL etc