The Sensex today opened 105 points higher at 13,803 on the back of smart gains after Infosys came out with its Q1 numbers which were largely in line with the market expectations.
The index hovered around the break-even point for the major part of the day. The better-than-expected index of industrial production (IIP) numbers which rose to 2.7% in May lifted the sentiment for a brief while. As a result the Sensex spurted to a high of 13,897.
However, sudden selling in the late trades mainly in index heavyweight Reliance saw the index nose-dive to a low of 13,418, down 478 points from the day's high.
The Sensex finally ended at 13,504, down 253 points.
The BSE Oil & Gas index tumbled 3% to 8,533. The Power, Capital Goods, Realty and PSU indexes declined 2-2.5% each. While IT index advanced 2% to 3,196.
Reliance and HDFC accounted for nearlt half of the losses.While the former accounted for 80 points loss on the Sensex, the latter shaved off another 38 points.
The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,638 shares traded, 1,785 declined and 772 shares advanced on the BSE.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Reliance Infrastructure tumbled 6.5% to Rs 1,029, and Jaiprakash Associates slumped over 5.5% to Rs 186.
Sun Pharma slipped over 4% to Rs 1,121.
Reliance Communications dropped 5.5% to Rs 242, and Bharti Airtel was down 2% at Rs 782.
Reliance shed 4% at Rs 1,778. The stock clocked volumes of 1.12 million shares on the BSE today.
SBI declined 3.5% to Rs 1,544 and HDFC Bank decreased 2% to Rs 1,369. ICICI Bank was down 1% at Rs 629.
...AND THE MOVERS
Wipro advanced around 3.5% to Rs 384. Infosys added around 3% to Rs 1,726 after the company posted a 17.2% increase in net profit to Rs 1,527 crore for the first quarter of current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,302 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2008. TCS gained 1.5% at Rs 394.
Sterlite moved up 3% to Rs 575.
VOLUME & VALUE TOPPERS
Educomp Solutions topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 266.77 crore. It was followed by Reliance (Rs 205.89 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 201.77 crore), Suzlon (Rs 183.69 crore) and Unitech (Rs 165.10 crore).
Unitech led the volume chart with trades of 23.27 million shares. It was followed by Cals Refineries (22.73 million), Suzlon (21.08 million), Mahindra Satyam (20.03 million) and Reliance Natural Resources (10.11 million) shares on the BSE.
