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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Market takes a hit


The market exhibited nervousness throughout the trading session. It witnessed a correction as weak Asian markets and flat US indices dampened the sentiment. After opening weak at 14212, the Sensex declined further under the selling pressure in heavyweights, banking, cement and pharma stocks. The decent earnings from several Sensex stocks failed to help the Sensex to recover from its losses. As trading progressed the Sensex lost its strength and slipped further towards the close to touch the intra-day low of 14026. The Sensex finally ended the session with losses of 168 points at 14041, while the Nifty shed 36 points and closed at 4066.

The broader market remained weak. Of the 2,679 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,722 stocks declined, 899 stocks advanced and 58 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices ended in negative territory. The BSE Bankex index dropped 2.17% to 7315, the BSE HC index shed 1.66% to 3834 and the BSE CD index was down 1.53% to 3802.

Among the major losers, ACC slumped 7.06% to Rs1,037, Gujarat Ambuja dropped 6.88% to Rs137, Dr Reddy's Lab shed 4.93% to Rs770, SBI lost 4.10% at Rs1174, Grasim declined 2.93% at Rs2,810 and HDFC Bank slipped by 2.50% at Rs1,030. NTPC tumbled 2.31% at Rs135, Maruti Udyog declined 2.05% at Rs919, Tata Motors lost 1.49% at Rs950 and Reliance Communication slipped 1.42% at Rs441. However, Bharti Airtel gained 1.89% at Rs689 and Hindalco rose 0.30% at Rs165.

The banking stocks came under sharp selling pressure. UTI Bank tumbled by 6.60% at Rs509, Canara Bank slipped 5.22% at Rs249, Kotak Bank slumped 4.09% at Rs462, BOI fell 3.94% at Rs196, PNB declined 2.14% at Rs515, Union Bank shed 1.62% at Rs116, Indian Overseas Bank was down 1.41% at Rs112 and ICICI Bank slipped 1.24% at Rs965.

Over 32.95 Crompton Greaves shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (32.46 lakh shares), Cairn India (29.38 lakh shares), Dena Bank (19.70 lakh shares) and Welspun Gujarat (18.81 lakh shares).

Value-wise SBI registered a turnover of Rs115 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Communication (Rs75 crore), India Cement (Rs56 crore), Gujarat Ambuja Cement (Rs55 crore) and Bharat Forge (Rs53 crore).