Profit-booking leads to 130-pt market fall

Profit-booking in index heavyweights clipped the four days' rally with the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex declining 130.66 points to close at 16086.83, while S&P CNX Nifty fell by 29 points to close at 4828.85.

Among the Sensex stocks, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel were biggest losers while Tata Steel, HDFC and ITC were the biggest gainers on Wednesday.

The breadth was extremely positive with advanced declined ratio (ADR) of 2:1 on BSE. The Mid-cap (up 1.56 per cent) and the small-cap (up 2.12 per cent) indices bucked the trend and ended the day with modest gains.

Among the sectoral indices, metals, consumer durables and realty posted modest gains, while Bankex, healthcare and capital goods posted losses.

"The index (Sensex) is likely to move in a narrow range and digest gains after the strong rise in the past four days,'' said Deven Choksey, chief executive officer at K R Choksey Shares & Securities to Bloomberg. It is likely to trade between 15,950 and 16,510 points," he said.

ICICI Bank, the largest private sector bank by assets, declined after the stock's price target was cut by banking analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.