Dull day at the markets, fall again

The market witnessed a dull day by closing on a weak note. It opened positive but soon slipped into the negative and remained weak most part of the day.

Bank and realty stocks have been adversely hit today. With a number of stocks from these sectors going down sharply on sustained selling pressure, the Bankex and Realty indices went down sharply by 4.29% and 5.2% respectively.

Mirroring the weakness exhibited by capital goods, FMCG, information technology, consumer durables, oil and pharma stocks, the respective sectoral indices have slipped by 1.5% - 3%. The Auto and Metal indices are up with marginal gains.

The market breadth was extremely negative.

Banking stocks were worst hit on the news that ICICI Bank lost USD 264 million till January 31 on subprime crisis but management clarified that they have made loss of USD 50 million in this quarter and subsidiaries to take hit of USD 25 million. Bank has made provision of USD 75 million in total.

BSE Bankex closed down at 4%. Amongst banking stocks, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bank of India and PNB were major losers.

Losers at the BSE Sensex were, BPCL, ICICI Bank, ACC, Cipla, Suzlon Energy, Punjab National Bank, Tata Power, DLF, ITC, Tata Communications, Infosys Technologies, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Dr. Reddy``s Laboratories, State Bank of India, Nalco, ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Reliance Industries and HCL Technologies.

Gainers at the BSE Sensex were, Zee Entertainment (4.55%), Hindalco (4%), HDFC (3.85%), Maruti Suzuki (3.5%), Idea Cellular (1.25%), GlaxoSmithKline Pharma (1.1%), Tata Motors (1.1%) and Mahindra & Mahindra (1%), Tata Consultancy Services, NTPC, Grasim Industries, Ambuja Cements, Sterlite Industries, Reliance Energy and Tata Steel.