Sensex loses 133 points, closes below 9,000

The slide that started a month ago continues unabated and now the Sensex has fallen below 9,000.

After a hugely volatile trade, aided early by a big positive gap opening, the Sensex dipped to 8,929 at close, its lowest level since December 8, 2005.

The 30-stock benchmark index ended the day netting a sharp loss of 133 points, despite a near 100-point gap at opening. The CNX Nifty index, which hit a high of 2,768 this morning, closed at 2m632.80 and registered a loss of 30.50 points.

The BSE Sensex came close to the 9,400-mark, in intra-day trade. It touched an intra-day high of 9,387.06. However, after the initial rally, profit booking set in, leading to the indices losing all their gains and falling into the red.

In fact, the significant volatility and intra-day swings that have plagued the indices were seen again today, with the BSE Sensex trading in a range of 588 points (difference between the high and low points of the day). Nonetheless, the benchmark index managed to recover significant ground from its lows.

Among the Sensex stocks, IT heavyweights Infosys and TCS were big losers. While Infosys shed 5.97 per cent to close at Rs 2,483.50, TCS lost 5.28 per cent and ended trade at Rs 1,487.50. Wipro, however, had a relatively better day, losing only 1.18 per cent to close at Rs 3,90.40.

Tata Tea was the biggest loser among the Nifty 50. The scrip lost 7.76 per cent and closed at Rs 5,77.30. ABB also shed over 7 per cent at its closing value of Rs 1,979.60.

The oil companies witnessed heavy buying, HPCL gained almost 9 per cent to end trade at Rs 232.70 and BPCL posted a 6.87 per cent rally to close at Rs. 318.30.

Rahul Rege, Senior Vice President, Sharekhan said, "The pressure of selling orders from institutions and private financiers took the markets down as buyers were not aggressive. Also continuous reshuffling of portfolios is making the markets highly volatile. Sensex may witness some more fall of 200-300 points with a potential of 600-800 points upside."

As per the provisional figures on NSE, FIIs net sold shares worth Rs 365.41 crore today. Mutual funds withdrew Rs 1715.64 crore from the Indian equity markets in the first few days of June.

The turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 3008.70 crore and NSE recorded volumes of Rs 6832.98 crore in cash segment and Rs 22948.05 crore in derivative segment.

The market breadth was highly negative once again with as many as 1918 stocks out of the 2422 stocks that were traded on BSE closing in the red today.

457 stocks ended on the positive side while 47 stocks finished unchanged from their previous closing levels.