Sensex ends below 10000; RIL, SBI, Bharti, Infosys crash

17 October 2008

The bears have latched on to the markets heavily in second half of session and forced the benchmark indices to hit new-2008 low on the back of negative cues from global markets. Realty, power, metal, telecom, capital goods, oil, banking and technology stocks took huge beating on the bourses.

Biggest contributors to this fall were Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, BHEL, NTPC, Reliance Communication, L&T, Reliance Infrastructure, TCS and ONGC.

The Sensex has closed below 10,000 mark for the first time since July 2006 and touched an intraday low of 9,911.32, a loss of over 53% from historic high. It took 384 sessions to go up from 10000 to 21207 while took just 192 sessions to come down 10,000. Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank were the real culprits behind this biggest drop from highest point; they contributed 30% to this fall from record 21,207 on the Sensex, following L&T, Reliance Communication, Tata Steel and HDFC. It settled at 9,975.35, down 606.14 points or 5.73% over previous close.

The Nifty has cracked 3050 as well and hit a low of 3046.60 in today's session, dropped over 52% from highest point of 6357.10 on January 8, 2008. It tumbled 194.95 points or 5.96%, to settle at 3074.35.

Market breadth was extremely weak; about 885 shares have advanced while 2103 shares have declined. Nearly 200 shares remained unchanged.

Among the frontliners, Reliance Infrastructure, Jaiprakash Associates, DLF, NTPC, Reliance Communication, BHEL, Sterlite Industries, SBI, TCS, Tata Steel, Hindalco, Unitech, Siemens and Reliance Petroleum crashed 8-12.5%. All stocks on the BSE Sensex Thirty are in red while only BPCL and HCL Tech ended in the green on the NSE Nifty Fifty.,