The Sensex opened 89 points higher at 10,425, and soon touched a high of 10,470. The index faced a major jolt in form of the Satyam fiasco. Heavy selling in Satyam and select index stocks saw the index slip into the negative zone and drift lower as the day progressed.'
The index slumped to a low of 9,510, and finally ended with a huge loss of 749 points (7.2%) at 9,587. In the process, the index wiped out its entire gains registered in the last four trading days.
The BSE Mid-cap index plunged over 7% to 3,198, and the Small-cap index shed 6.3% at 3,663.
The BSE Realty index tanked 19% to 1,965. The Oil & Gas and IT indices shed 9.3% each at 5,944 and 2,128, respectively. The Bankex dropped 8% to 5,489.
The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,582 stocks traded, 2,110 declined, 415 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.
INDEX SHAKERS...
Satyam slumped today following Ramalinga Raju's resignation as the company's managing director, and subsequent confession of a fraud in the company's accounts management by him. The stock, which, touched a high of Rs 189 in morning trades, saw a free fall and tumbled to a low of Rs 31. The stock finally ended with a huge loss of almost 78% (Rs 139) on the back of hefty volumes of around 14.30 crore shares.
Jaiprakash Associates plunged 29% to Rs 71. Reliance Communications shed 17% at Rs 207, and DLF tumbled 16% to Rs 235.
Reliance Infrastructure cracked 13.5% to Rs 559, and Reliance dropped 12.5% to Rs 1,197.
ICICI Bank slipped 10.5% to Rs 468. Larsen & Toubro declined 8.6% to Rs 776.
HDFC Bank was down over 8% at Rs 1,011. Ranbaxy and Tata Motors shed 7% each at Rs 236 and Rs 173, respectively.
SBI, ACC, Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Steel were the other major losers.
...AND THE MOVERS
Hindustan Unilever gained 2% at Rs 251. Infosys moved up 1.7% to Rs 1,187.
VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS
Satyam topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 916.50 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 459 crore), Jaiprakash Associates (Rs 236 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 228.70 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 191.50 crore).
Satyam also led the volume chart with trades of around 14.30 crore shares followed by Suzlon Energy (3.09 crore), Unitech (2.88 crore), Jaiprakash Associates (2.85 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (1.93 crore).
