Reliance, Infosys top trading volumes

The investors took into account the lower-than-expected earnings of Infosys and Reliance Industries, and dragged down the market for a third straight session. Both the stocks were hammered in the opening hours with high trading volumes on the BSE and the NSE.

Reliance and Infosys together accounted for almost 30 per cent turnover, with the former aggregating a turnover of Rs 2,437.58 crore, while the latter clocked Rs 1,838.56 crore.

Reliance aggregated a turnover of Rs 698.09 crore on the BSE and Rs 1,739.49 crore on the NSE, while Infosys aggregated turnover of Rs 452.04 crore on the BSE and Rs 1,386.52 crore on the NSE.

The hectic activity on the Reliance counter saw almost 2 per cent of the company's equity capital changed hands on Thursday. The BSE witnessed trading volume of 78.98 lakh shares, while at the NSE it was 196.78 lakh shares.

Infosys too, witnessed heightened activity with 65.16 lakh shares accounting for 2.37 per cent of the company's equity capital changed hands on Thursday. Reliance on Thursday opened at Rs 886 on the BSE compared to its previous day's close of Rs 893.55 and slipped further to Rs 873.50.

The stock recovered marginally on the buying support to close at Rs 887.25. Around 42.22 per cent of total traded volumes were marked for delivery on the BSE, while the NSE witnessed 51.06 per cent shares for deliveries. Infosys witnessed 42.8 per cent deliveries on the BSE, while on the NSE it was 50.90 per cent.

The BSE IT index tumbled 1.71 per cent at 3,659 and the BSE Teck index dropped 1.52 per cent at 2,399. Leading the slump, Infosys declined 4.69 per cent at Rs 2,835.

Weakness was seen in several tech stocks. NIIT dropped 5.81 per cnt at Rs 285 and 3i Infotech lost 4.77 per cent at Rs 181. Hexaware, Mastek, Visual Software, Infotech Enterprises, Onward Technologies and Geometric Software were down 2-4 per cent each.