Sensex down 171pts; VSNL drops 10%

The Sensex opened on a flat note at 9,254, but moved up to a high of 9,262 in early deals. Selling commenced soon after, and the Sensex dropped to a low of 9,050 in late noon deals - an intra-day swing of 212 points. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 171 points (1.9%) at 9,086.

All the sectoral indices dropped sharply today. The BSE Bankex crashed over 3% (161 points) to 4,900. The BSE SmallCap Index was down 2.5% (150 points) to 5,668. The BSE Teck Index declined over 2% (54 points) to 2,375. The BSE Auto Index also dropped over 2% (88 points) to 4,140.

Declines were ahead of advances 4:1 - out of 2,481 scrips traded, 1,954 declined, 478 advanced and 49 were unchanged today.

Bharti Tele slumped over 5% (Rs 18) to Rs 333.

Cement scrips cracked under selling pressure today. Gujarat Ambuja crashed 4.7% (Rs 4) to Rs 77. While ACC slipped 3% (Rs 16) to Rs 523, Grasim dropped Rs 33 (2.5%) to Rs 1,300.

Power stocks, too, wilted under profit-taking today. Tata Power dropped 3.8% (Rs 16) to Rs 419. Reliance Energy declined 3.5% (Rs 21) to Rs 578. BHEL slipped Rs 39 to Rs 1,327. NTPC was down 2% at Rs 106.

Infosys declined Rs 31 to Rs 2,950. Satyam was down Rs 16 at Rs 695. While TCS dropped Rs 9 to Rs 1,663, Wipro slipped Rs 8 to Rs 457.

SBI dropped 2.6% (Rs 23) to Rs 869. HLL lost over 2% (Rs 4) to Rs 189. While Reliance was down Rs 10 at Rs 832, ONGC declined Rs 6 to Rs 1,186.

ICICI Bank slipped 3.7% (Rs 21) to Rs 560. HDFC Bank declined 2.6% (Rs 19) to Rs 709. HDFC dropped 2.7% (Rs 32) to Rs 1,173.

Bajaj declined 2.8% (Rs 57) to Rs 2,023. Maruti was down Rs 12 at Rs 614.

L&T moved up Rs 6 to Rs 1,754, and Cipla was up marginally at Rs 430.

Fertiliser scrips logged gains today. National Fertilisers gained over 4% to Rs 47. RCF moved up over 3% to Rs 45. FACT was up marginally at Rs 36.

MNC scrips witnessed buying interest today. BASF moved up nearly 5% to Rs 260. AstraZeneca Pharma gained 3% (Rs 69) to Rs 2,364. Bata moved up 2% to Rs 183. GSK Consumer moved up 1.5% (Rs 8) to Rs 548. Pfizer was up Rs 12 at Rs 993. Mico added Rs 23 to Rs 2,747.

VSNL crashed over 10% (Rs 44) to Rs 367. MTNL declined over 5% to Rs 137.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 166 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 125 crore), SBI (Rs 113 crore), Titan (Rs 88 crore) and VSNL (Rs 87 crore).