Nifty closes below 5K led by realty, oil, metal, FMCG stks

23 May 2008

The markets completely smashed out for the second straight session due to heavy selling pressure in realty, metal, oil & gas, FMCG, technology and banking stocks in the second half of session and ended last day of the week on a weaker note. The Nifty breached psychological level of 5000 and then 4950 as well in late trade but managed to close above 4950. The Sensex continued to trade below 17000 levels. Midcap and small cap stocks also hammered a lot. Market breadth was very weak.

Markets had opened on a positive note in the morning after yesterday's free fall, remained choppy in the middle of the day but heavy selling pressure across the sectors dragged the markets sharply lower and lower in late trade.

The Sensex closed the day at 16,649.64, down 1.52% or 257.47 points after hitting an intraday high of 17,054.34 and low of 16,626.11. The Nifty touched a high/low of 5059.05 and 4940.70 before finishing at 4946.55, down 78.9 points or 1.57%.

The BSE Midcap slipped 1.59% at 6,937.11 and Small cap down 1.69% at 8,517.43. Amongst midcap space, MIC Electronics, Geojit Financial, Deccan Aviation, GVK Power, Nat Fert, Core Projects, Guj Ind Power and BF Utilities cracked over 5%. Small cap stocks like Tamilnadu Petro, Shree Digvijay, Cambridge Sol, Hatsun Agro, Dolphin Offshore, India Glycols, Apar Ind, Sunflag Iron and Pricol slipped over 6-9%.

Biggest underperformer of the day was Realty Index, which collapsed 2.38% to settle at 7,510.14 due to selling in Indiabulls Real, Parsvnath, Peninsula Land, Ansal Properties, HDIL, Omaxe, Unitech and DLF.

FMCG stocks like ITC, Dabur, United Breweries, Tata Tea, GlaxoSmith Cons crumpled . The BSE FMCG Index closed at 2,387.47, down 2.15%.