Unabated selling in the second half of the day, saw the markets slide today. Taking cues from the world markets, our markets opened in green, but resumed its southbound journey as metal and auto stocks caved in. The selling pressure today was so intense and across sectors, that all sectoral indices too ended in red with losses in excess of 1% each.
The Sensex touched a high of 20,211 in opening trades, but tumbled to a low of 19,629 - down 581 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 493 points (2.4%) at 19,692. This is one of the biggest fall in the last seven months. Way back on May 25, the Sensex had dropped 2.7%.
With today's fall, the Sensex has shed 869 points (4.2%) in the last four trading sessions. Barring the first day of this week and the year 2011, the markets have been in red throughout.
The steep fall in Nifty saw the index slip below its psychological 6,000-mark, to end the day way down at 5,905 - down 144 points.
All the indices closed in the negative on the BSE sectoral chart. The sectors that took the beating were Metal, Auto and Consumer Durables which lost between 3-4% each. Hindalco down 7% followed by JSW Steel, Bhushan Steel, National Aluminium and Sterlite which lost 4-6% each were the major draggers in the metal space. On the auto front,Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Exide, Mahindra & Mahindra which shed 4% -5% each.
However, the Asian markets closed the day on a mixed note. Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas across Asia, driven by fears it could stoke inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies.
KLSE Composite, Nikkei, Seoul Composite and Shanghai Composite gained between 0.1% - 0.5% in today's trades. Meanwhile, Jakarta Composite lost 2% and Taiwan Weighted shed 1%. Hang Seng and Straits Times closed the week shedding 0.4% and 0.7% respectively.
In the European markets, all the indices opened in the negative for the second day in a row. DAX shed 0.4%, FTSE started down 0.6% and CAC lost 0.8%.
There were no gainers for the day on the Sensex. Apart from metal and auto scrips, Bharti Airtel, ITC, HDFC, Infosys, DLF, TCS were down 3-4% each followed by TCS, HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever, NTPC and Maruti Suzuki which lost 2% each.
The BSE mid-cap index shed 190 points or 2.5% at 7470 and the small-cap index ended the day at 9363 lower by 275 points or 2.9%.
Polaris Software was the top loser among the mid-cap stocks, the stock shed more than 7% to end at Rs 171. Shiv Vani Oil, JM Financial, Gujarat Fluochemicals, BF Utilities, IBN18 Broadcast and Hindustan Oil Exploration Company were also major losers down more than 6.5% each.
Among the small-cap stocks Sahara One, Fame India, Quadrant Televentures, Lloyds Metal and Ferro Alloys, Simplex Projects and Bhagwati Banquets and Hotels were among the top losers down more than 8% each.
The market breadth was very negative. Of the total 3,047 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,330 stocks had declined while 620 had advanced.
