Sensex falls 288 pts on selling in metal,
Bears tear down mid-caps, Sensex down
A severe bout of selling pressure engulfed the market a little past mid afternoon and took a heavy toll of stocks cutting across sectors and size. The decline in values of its components proved so sharp that the Sensex, which had raced to a new high at 21,206.77 in morning trade, crashed to 20,530.07.
The Sensex finally ended the day at 20,582.08, down 287.70 points or 1.38% from its previous closing mark. The Nifty, which hit a high of 6347 in intra-day trades, settled at 6156.95, a few points off its low of 6142.90, netting a big loss of 1.83% or 115.05 points for the day.
Turning cautious ahead of key quarterly results, investors resorted to heavy profit booking in late afternoon trade today. With global markets too not displaying any significant strength, the market found recovery a rather tough proposition during the final minutes.
As stocks cutting across sectors felt the heat, except the Bankex, the other sectoral indices ended with big losses today. ICICI Bank, which was the only Sensex stock to close on a positive note - it posted a gain of 3.55% - saved the day for the Bankex. But then, at 0.03%, the barometer's rise was just marginal. ICICI Bank was in strong demand today on the back of reports that the entity may list its subsidiaries during this year in order to unlock value.
Among Nifty stocks, besides ICICI Bank, Idea Cellular (1.25%) and Unitech (0.3%) were the ones to end on a positive note today.
Hindalco, the biggest loser in the Sensex, went down by 4.75%. Tata Steel posted a loss of 4.05%. ACC, BHEL, ITC, Infosys Technologies, NTPC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications and Reliance Energy lost 3% - 4%.
Tata Motors (down 2.75%), State Bank of India (down 2.2%), Larsen & Toubro (down 2.8%), Hindustan Unilever (down 2.15%), DLF (down 2.25%) and Grasim Industries (down 2.35%) also suffered sharp losses. Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Maruti Suzuki, Satyam Computer Services and Tata Consultancy Services lost 1% - 2%.
Reliance Industries closed with a minor loss at Rs 3027.05. Ambuja Cements ended flat while BHEL eased by 0.3%. Wipro, Mahindra & Mahindra, ONGC and Bajaj Auto lost over half a per cent.
Nifty stocks GAIL India and Reliance Petroleum lost over 6% today. BPCL ended with a big loss of 5.5%. SAIL, Tata Power, Nalco, Cairn India, Zee Entertainment, GlaxoSmithKline Pharma, Punjab National Bank, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Sterlite Industries and Siemens closed lower by 2% - 5%. VSNL, HCL Technologies and Hero Honda also ended with sharp losses.
Mid and smallcap stocks had another terrible outing. So sharp was the erosion in values of these stocks that the Midcap and Smallcap indices plunged 3.37% and 3.82% respectively.
The market breadth was very weak with declines outnumbering advances by a huge margin. Out of a total of 2912 stocks traded on BSE today, as many as 2544 stocks closed in the negative territory. 351 stocks managed to post gains and 17 stocks ended at their previous closing levels.
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