Amid intense intra-day volatility of over 260 points"" the sixth largest in the history of the Bombay Stock Exchange ""the Sensex today regained most of the ground it had lost early in the day to close at 8,487.14, down 13.14 points. The CNX Nifty ended the day, down 10.70 points at 2,567.30. |
The total turnover of the cash and derivatives markets hit a record high of Rs 42,965.77 crore. The breadth of the market was squeezed today as the declines outnumbered advances by almost 78 per cent. |
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As many as 2,352 stocks (88.82 per cent) out of 2,648 traded declined, while only 274 stocks (10.35 per cent) advanced and 22 remained unchanged. Investors' wealth worth Rs 26,227.22 crore eroded today. |
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Though the Sensex opened close to yesterday's level of 8499.33 points, reports about increasing regulatory surveillance for the past few days led to panic selling in the morning, taking the index to an intra-day low of 8261.58 points by 11.30 am. |
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But the market shrugged off negative signals like an increase in the interest rate by the US Federal Reserve, a new hurricane -- Rita -- hitting the Mexican coast, and a rise in international crude oil prices. |
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Among the stocks that contributed to the rally was ITC, which rose 8.9 per cent to Rs 140.15 as investors bet on robust consumer goods sales in the coming festival season. |
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ONGC rose nearly 1 per cent to Rs 1,039.40 after the company said it planned a huge capital expenditure this financial year and would boost crude output to 30 million tonnes by 2009-10 from 26 million tonnes. |
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Reliance Industries rose 0.5 per cent to Rs 782.70 after company executives said in London that high margins would be maintained in the refining business. |
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Hindalco Industries fell 3.4 per cent to Rs 155.40. This is after the company said it planned to raise up to Rs 2,500 crore through a rights share issue. |
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Software services firms slipped on losses in New York after the US Federal Reserve raised rates and signalled more increases. Tata Consultancy Services fell 1.2 per cent to Rs 1,453.05 and Infosys Technologies slipped 1.3 per cent to Rs 2,465.10. |
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Sharmila Joshi, assistant vice-president, Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates, said, "The market was affected by a combination of factors. The reduction of circuit filter limits affected trading in certain groups. External factors such as the US interest rate hike, the rise in crude prices by over a dollar and Opec's refusal to increase its production also impacted the market." |
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Naresh Kothari, executive vice-president, Edelweiss Securities, said, "The big sale of stocks had happened at the retail level over the panic created by the increased regulatory focus on specific stocks. The institutional investors, too, were not stable in their outlook for the market." |
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There were reports that many broking houses had issued "sell" advisories to their clients and that the institutional investors were also waiting for clear signals to emerge before resuming investments. The worst hit today were the "T", "S" and "Z" group shares. |
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FMCG stocks were the saviours. The FMCG index on the BSE posted gains of 3.73 per cent, followed by the oil and gas stocks and the PSU index, both being small gainers at 0.10 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively. |
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All the other 14 indices on the BSE posted losses, with small and medium cap stocks leading the losers. Their indices lost 3.72 per cent and 2.68 per cent, respectively. |
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These two indices were also the major losers yesterday. |
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Domestic financial institutions were cautious and mutual funds were less aggressive, while FIIs showed interest only in frontline stocks. |
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The top five gainers in the A-group stocks were Pidilite Industries (6.20 per cent), Ramco Systems (5.26 per cent), Micro Inks (4.61 per cent), NTPC India (4.39 per cent) and BASF India (2.17 per cent). The top losers in the A-group were Videocon International (9.21 per cent), Apollo Hospitals (8.13 per cent), Visualsoft (7.74 per cent), Tamilnadu Newsprint (7.55 per cent) and Indo-Rama Synthetics (7.26 per cent). |
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