Sensex ends below 15500; banks, realty, CG, IT stks drag

18 June 2008

Bears have taken complete control over the markets in today's session after yesterday's bull run and closed the day on a weaker note. Main culprits were realty, banking, technology, capital goods, metal, oil and power stocks. Banks and realty stocks had led rally in yesterday's trade but today, both sectors were main draggers. Selling pressure in European markets also weighed on the markets.

The markets had opened with marginal gains and remained volatilie for first half of session, which seemed that tussle between bulls and bears. But ultimately after 12:30 pm, both indices started drifting lower and broken psychological levels. The Nifty closed below 4600 and the Sensex below 15500 levels.

The Sensex has touched an intraday low of 15,390.22 and high of 15,789.62, before closing the day at 15,422.31, down 274.59 points or 1.75%. The Nifty plunged 70.6 points or 1.52% at 4582.40 after hitting a high/low of 4679.75 and 4569.90.

Amongst frontliners, HCL Tech plunged -4.48%, ICICI Bank -4.11%, HDFC Bank -3.73%, Tata Steel -3.30% and L&T -3.12% while Ambuja Cements was up 4.80%, Zee Entertain 3.39%, Ranbaxy Labs 2.88%, Grasim 2.38% and Maruti Suzuki 1.24%.

Market breadth was negative; about 1305 shares have advanced while 1458 shares declined. Nearly 358 shares remained unchanged on the BSE.

BSE Bankex has underperformed other indices, down 3.45% or 260.73 points at 7,306.44 due to heavy sell off in Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, Union Bank, PNB and SBI.