Bank stocks buck the trend

Sensex falls 288 pts on worries over industrial growth number.

In the biggest single-day fall of the new year, stock prices tumbled on across-the-board profit booking on fears of slower industrial growth numbers for November, which will be released tomorrow.

The market, which opened higher despite weak global cues, however, came under sustained selling by foreign funds in the latter half of the session. Consumer durables, FMCG, metal and PSU stocks were the biggest losers.

Small- and mid-cap stocks also continued to slip on profit-booking, after the recent run-up. The Mid-cap and Small-cap Index had also outperformed the market in the past three months, after they gained 36.54 per cent and 55.68 per cent respectively as compared to the Sensex's 13.85 per cent rise in the same period.

The bellwether Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange, opened 60.50 points higher from yesterday, before hitting a new life-high of 21,206.77, but sustained selling pulled down the indices. The Sensex finally ended at 20,582.08, down 287.70 points, or 1.38 per cent down from previous close.

Broader Nifty Index of National Stock Exchange ended at 6,156.95, down 1.83 per cent, or 115.05. Small Cap Index, which lost 3.82 per cent, shed the most among all indices.

The mid-cap index declined by 3.32 per cent. "We think, there will be buyers at lower levels for small- and mid-cap stocks," said Dalpat Mehta of Religare Securities.

The BSE Consumer Durables Index, which tracks stocks such as Videocon Industries, Titan Industries and Bluestar, fell the most among sector-specific indices with a loss of 3.76 per cent. The other big losers among sector-specific indices were BSE Metals (down 3.36 per cent) and BSE PSU Index (down 3.15 per cent).

Tata Motors, which shot up by over 3 per cent in early trade after Ratan Tata unveiled the small car 'Nano', however, ended lower by 2.78 per cent at Rs 749. Only the Bankex ended in positive territory.

Apart from Philippines and China, all the Asian markets fell on fears that the US credit market losses will spread to other markets. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.3 per cent to 152.94 as of 6:54 p.m. in Tokyo, snapping a two-day, 1.3 per cent advance.

Among the Sensex constituents, barring ICICI Bank, which ended higher by 3.53 per cent, all the index heavyweights came under heavy selling pressure. Hindalco, which tumbled 4.78 per cent at Rs 202, led the losers pack.