FII selling triggers fall, Sensex slides 368pts

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 41 points 11,960, and soon spurted to a high of 11,972. The index, however, could not hold gains for long and slipped into negative zone.

Bears took control thereafter, and the index drifted lower as the day progressed. Heavy selling by FIIs in the derivatives segment in the last two days was the major dampner on market sentiment. FIIs had pulled out a total of Rs 1,660 crore from the derivatives segment on Thursday & Friday.

Heavy unwinding towards the close saw the index tumble to a low of 11,506 - down 466 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally settled with a loss of 3% (368 points) at 11,551.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices too plunged over 3% each to 4879 and 5841, respectively.

The BSE Metal index slumped 5% to 8190. The Auto, FMCG, Healthcare Oil & Gas and IT indices dropped over 3% each to 5039, 1962, 3507, 5567 and 4147, respectively.

The market breadth was very negative - declining shares beat advances in the ratio of nearly 4:1. Out of 2,568 stocks traded, 1,971 declined, 551 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Reliance Energy plunged 6% to Rs 459. Tata Motors and Tata Steel shed 5.5% each to Rs 848 and Rs 497, respectively.

Hindalco tumbled over 5% to Rs 174. Cipla, HLL and Gujarat Ambuja dropped around 4.5% each to Rs 245, Rs 230 and Rs 110, respectively. ACC was down 4.3% at Rs 905.

TCS, Reliance and Larsen & Toubro slipped nearly 4% each to Rs 956, Rs 1,088 and Rs 2,462, respectively. Ranbaxy slipped 3.5% to Rs 402.

Dr.Reddy's, ITC, NTPC, Infosys, HDFC Bank, BHEL and Bajaj Auto declined around 3% each to Rs 713, Rs 182, Rs 121, Rs 1,736, Rs 823, Rs 2,255 and Rs 2,698, respectively.

Hero Honda, however, displayed immense strength in an otherwise falling market to finish with a gain of 1.3% at Rs 745.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 238.40 crore followed by Reliance Communications (Rs 94.82 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 93.37 crore), Maruti (Rs 80 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 76.50 crore).

Hotel Leelaventure led the volume chart with trades of around 93 lakh shares followed by Birla VXL (61.22 lakh), LML (53.45 lakh), Exide Industries (38.45 lakh) and Reliance Communications (29.75 lakh).