Sensex 208 points lower

After rallying for the past couple of sessions the 30-stock Sensex of the BSE lost 208 points on sustained selling in heavyweights, oil, capital goods and realty stocks. The market started the day on a positive note at 9,161 and touched the day's high of 9,183, but remained range-bound as trading progressed. After slipping below 9,000 level in noon trades, the Sensex plunged deep into the red towards the close on unabated selling in oil, capital goods and realty stocks, touching the day's low of 8,649. The Sensex signed off the day with a loss of 2.33% or 208 points at 8,696. Nifty tumbled 54 points to close at 2,654.

Market breadth was extremely weak. Of the 2,524 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,442 stocks declined, 995 stocks advanced and 87 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices were bashed bar the BSE CD. BSE Oil & Gas led the slump falling by 3.86% for the session. BSE CG was down 2.56%, BSE Realty lost 2.51% and BSE Bankex dropped 2.01%. The remaining sectoral indices slipped by around 1-2% each.

Of the 30 Sensex stocks, 23 ended in the red, with oil and capital goods stocks taking a strong beating. Among oil stocks, Aban Offshore plummeted by 6.85% at Rs707.65 and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) crashed by 6.40% at Rs1,071.70. Capital goods major, Suzlon Energy slumped 9.49% at Rs42.45 and BEML lost nearly 9% at Rs290. Index heavyweight Mahindra & Mahindra plunged 7.63% at Rs276.65, State Bank of India (SBI) shed 6.55% at Rs1,071.70, Reliance Communications declined by 4.98% at Rs195.55, Ranbaxy Laboratories slipped by 4.70% at Rs203.60 and Sterlite Industries fell by 4.64% at Rs204.65.

Over 2.19 crore shares of GVK Power & Infrastructure changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.22 crore shares), Unitech (1.11 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (64.82 lakh shares) and Sesa Goa (63.23 lakh shares).

RIL registered a turnover of Rs337 crore followed by SBI (Rs198 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs182 crore), Educomp Solutions (Rs143 crore) and Reliance Infrastructure (Rs132 crore).