Heavyweights pull Nifty down

Reliance Industries, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and six other S&P CNX Nifty stocks contributed 56 per cent to the 300-point decline in the index in the three trading days between December 7 and 12.

The Nifty fell from its high of 4,015 last Thursday to close at 3,716.90 on Tuesday "" down 299 points. Reliance Industries, with its weightage of 9.07 per cent in the Nifty, contributed 27.41 points to the fall.

ONGC was the second largest contributor, pulling down the index by 25.51 points, followed by Bharti Airtel 22.56 points, Reliance Communications 19.96 points and SBI 18.09 points.

All the Nifty components declined by an average of 6.91 per cent in the last three trading days, with Dr Reddy's the least hurt, down by 0.42 per cent.

As many as 13 Nifty components saw value erosion between 10 and 14.6 per cent, while 16 others reported value erosion between 7 and 10 per cent.

Dr Reddy's, which is currently trading at a P/E of 26.65 to its trailing twelve months' earnings, stood unruffled in the bloodbath. The stock fell a modest 0.42 per cent from Rs 756.80 on Thursday to Rs 753.60 today. Infosys Technologies, too, sustained the fall with a modest loss of 2.82 per cent. Dabur, Cipla and Hero Honda posted a modest drop of around 4 per cent each.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India and Reliance Communications triggered a major fall in the 30-scrip BSE Sensex, which declined by 976 points in the last three trading days.

Reliance Industries, with its Sensex weightage of 11.2 per cent, triggered a fall of 112.22 points. ICICI Bank contributed 103.16 points, while Bharti Airtel, SBI and Reliance Communications contributed 60 to 63 points each in the Sensex crash of 976 points.

Among the other Sensex heavyweights, Infosys, with a weightage of 11.63 per cent, contributed 41 points to the Sensex's fall, while ITC and HLL pulled down the Sensex by 55 and 29 points, respectively.

The market value of four Sensex stocks declined by over 10 per cent in the last three days, with ACC witnessing the biggest fall at 14.21 per cent, followed by SBI down 12.36 per cent, Reliance Communications down 11.58 per cent and Tata Steel falling by 10.40 per cent.