SMILES CUT SHORT, Sensex drops 250pts

The Sensex witnessed the now common volatility again today, and swung nearly 300 points in the first half-hour of trade.

The index, thereafter, wiped-out the early losses and rallied to a high of 11,001. However, the smiles were short-lived as the index could not hold gains and slipped back into negative zone.

Selling intensified in late noon deals, partly due to the weak opening of the European markets and a sharp drop in metal prices on the LME. The index tumbled all the way to a low of 10,505 - down 496 points from the day's high.

The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 2.3% (250 points) at 10,573.

The BSE Metal index plunged 3.6% to 8,370, and the Oil & Gas index slumped 3.4% to 5,096. The FMCG and Capital Goods index dropped 2.5% each to 1,935 and 7,436, respectively. The Consumer Durables index, however, ended with a gain of 1.5% at 3,013.

The Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were marginally (0.4%) down at 5,082 and 6,456, respectively.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,507 stocks traded, 1,366 declined, 1,101 advanced and 40 were unchanged today.

While 298 stocks hit lower limits, 154 touched upper circuits today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

ONGC slumped almost 6% to Rs 1,165. Reliance slipped over 3% to Rs 939.

Tata Steel plunged 5.6% to Rs 482. Hindalco tumbled 3% to Rs 185.

Maruti declined 5.3% to Rs 760. Bajaj Auto shed 4.7% to Rs 2,840. Tata Motors and Hero Honda were down around 2.5% each at Rs 760 and Rs 773, respectively.

While HLL slumped 4.6% to Rs 228, ITC declined 2.5% to Rs 174. Ranbaxy shed 2.8% to Rs 434.

HDFC dropped 4.5% to Rs 1,185. HDFC Bank declined 2.2% to Rs 769.

Wipro dropped over 4% to Rs 453. Infosys slipped over 2% to Rs 2,858, and TCS declined 1.7% to Rs 1,793.

Tata Power tumbled 3.8% to Rs 530, and Reliance Energy slipped 3.2% to Rs 532.

Larsen & Toubro was down nearly 3% at Rs 2,269, and BHEL shed 2% to Rs 1,973.

ACC spurted over 2% to Rs 768. NTPC and Cipla added 1.6% each to Rs 119 and Rs 231, respectively.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Panacea Biotech zoomed nearly 18% to Rs 400. Godfrey Phillips, Phoenix Lamps, Simple Infrastrcuture, Monnet Ispat, Rama Newsprint, Royal Orchids, Sesha Paper, Sterling Biotech, GSK Pharma, Syngenta, Merck, HCL Infosys, Alok Industries, BEML, Colgate and Bank of Baroda were the other major gainers today.

Lokesh Machines plunged 10.5% to Rs 174. Bombay Burmah, Rane Holdings, Gati, Shaw Wallace, Shyam Telecom, Uttam Sugar, Punj Lloyd, Bharat Electricals, Century Textiles, Siemens, Bombay Dyeing, Hinduja TMT, Mahindra & Mahindra and Jaiprakash were the other significant losers today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 278.86 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 113.49 crore), Satyam (Rs 97.58 crore), Hindalco (Rs 84.35 crore) and Infosys (Rs 76.37 crore).

G V Films led the volume chart with trades of around 1.09 crore shares followed by IFCI (54.82 lakh), SAIL (45.36 lakh), Hindalco (43.79 lakh) and Reliance Petro (41.50 lakh).