Weekly review: Sensex ignores +ves, ends down 3%

This week settled on an dismal note mainly on the back of earning worries. Despite a surpise bonus declaration of 1:1 after a long span of 12 years by Reliance Industries and a better-than-expected Q-2 result by IT-giant, Infosys the Sensex failed to keep up and ended with a loss of 491.89 points or 2.8 per cent to finally settle at 16,642.66.

Among the BSE-30 components, Hindustan Unilever zoomed 8% followed by Reliance Infrastructure (7%), ITC (7%), Tata Steel (4%), BHEL (3%) and ONGC (3%). The other marginal gainers included HDFC Bank, Sterlite Industries, Hindalco, Tata Power and Hero Honda, up 1-2% each.

Telecommunication stocks were batterred badly, Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel plunged 21%.Telecom companies have been struggling to sustain revenue growth as they go rural and scrape the bottom of the barrel in urban areas. 

ARPUs (Average revenues per user) are expected to fall again as the price war is bound to heat up. Mobile number Portability (effective from Jan 2010 in metros and Category A service areas) will force the tariff competition to heat up even in the higher revenue post-paid market where it has been cooler till now.

IT stocks also suffered on fears of earning downgrade as the rupee touched a fresh 12-month high of 46.83.

Grasim Industries, TCS, Maruti Suzuki, Wipro, SBI and Infosys declined 6-11% each.

Among the sectoral indices, this week FMCG gained the maximum, up 6.15 per cent. It was followed by consumer durables (5.6 per cent), metal (2.17 per cent) and healthcare (1.2 per cent) among the prominent movers.

BSE TECk slumped 10.74 per cent. IT ( 7.25 per cent), realty (2.61 per cent), auto (2.31 per cent) and bankex (1.6 per cent) followed it.