Sensex tanks on US recession fears

Market continued to reel under heavy selling pressure and the benchmark Sensex tanked over 700 points by afternoon as the US Federal Reserve official's remarks amplifying fears of an economic recession in the US swiped global markets. The major Asian indices like the Hang Seng, the Nikkei index and the Straits Times index shed 3-5% each, thereby adding pressure on the domestic indices. However, selective buying at lower levels towards the close saw the Sensex recover over 200 points form the day's low. But, extensive correction in heavyweight, information technology, consumer durables and metal stocks kept the market in the negative territory. The Sensex finally ended the session at 18,139, down 524 points, while the Nifty shed 161 points and closed at 5,323.

All the sectoral indices had a weak outing. The BSE IT index dropped over 5.59% and the BSE CD index slipped 4.55%, while the BSE Metal index and the BSE Teck index were down over 3% each. The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,818 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,299 stocks advanced, 1,477 stocks declined and 42 stocks ended unchanged.

Most of the index heavyweights ended in the red. Among the IT pack Satyam Computer was the major loser and tumbled by 6.74% at Rs409, while Wipro at Rs425, Infosys at Rs1,511 and TCS at Rs901 slumped around 5-6% each. Among the other major losers Hindalco dropped 4.89% at Rs173, Maruti Suzuki lost 4.83% at Rs830, ONGC fell 4.41% at Rs1,027 and Bharti Airtel declined by 3.80% at Rs900. Reliance Energy, however, bucked the downtrend and gained 1.48% at Rs2,056. Reliance Communications was marginally up at Rs682.

Over 4.69 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (3.40 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (2.45 crore shares), IFCI (2.06 crore shares) and Tata Teleservices (1.51 crore shares).

Valuewise, RNRL clocked a turnover of Rs735 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs243 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs242 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs239 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs210 crore).