Market dumped

Market witnessed across-the-board selling as the sentiment remained bearish on the back of liquidity squeeze in the domestic market and a sharp fall in Asian indices. Sustained selling in power, technology and banking stocks too added pressure on the domestic indices. The major Asian indices like the Hang Seng, the Kospi, the Straits Times and the Nikkei shed over 1-2% each. After resuming 108 points above its previous close at 20,836, the market remained under the grip of sustained selling pressure. Extensive correction in heavyweights and index pivotal stocks towards the close dragged the index to the day's low of 20,204. The Sensex finally ended the session at 20,251, down 477 points, while the Nifty shed 133 points and closed at 6,074.

All the sectoral indices were hammered on the back of relentless selling pressure. The BSE Teck index dropped 2.59% at 3,624, the BSE Power index lost 2.45% at 4,632, the BSE Bankex index shed 2.39% at 12,258 and the BSE FMCG index fell 2.34% at 2,354. The broader market was weak. Of the 2,888 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,869 stocks declined, 988 stocks advanced and 31 stocks ended unchanged.

Except Tata Steel, Maruti and Tata Motors all the stocks in the Sensex basket ended in the red. Among the major losers, Bharti Airtel tanked 5.51% at Rs857, Reliance Energy tumbled by 4.42% at Rs2,365, ICICI Bank declined by 4.05% at Rs1,351, NTPC slumped 3.84% at Rs274, ITC fell 3.70% at Rs216, Reliance Communication plunged 3.45% at Rs777, Satyam Computer dropped 2.87% at Rs388, M&M slipped by 2.86% at Rs734 and L&T was down 2.51% at Rs4,062. Other front-line stocks were down 1-2% each.

RNRL witnessed volumes of over 2.44 crore shares on the BSE followed by Centurion Bank of Punjab (1.63 crore shares), Aries Agro (1.21 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.11 crore shares) and GV Films (1.07 crore shares).

Valuewise, RNRL registered a turnover of Rs550 crore on the BSE followed by India Bulls (Rs406 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs286 crore), Aries Agro (Rs284 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs241 crore).