Nifty ends below 2,800; bank, realty, metal stocks dip

17 November 2008

The markets ended marginally lower, despite showing smart recovery in last one hour of the trade. Realty, metal, banking, pharma and select oil stocks remained under pressure. Midcap and small cap stocks followed the same trend. However, buying was seen in Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Infosys, Wipro, NTPC, BHEL, ACC, Ambuja Cements, Maruti and Tata Motors.

The benchmark indices had opened flat and as the day progressed, both turned into red. The Nifty and the Sensex had also slipped below 2700 and 9000 levels during the day, respectively. However, buying in select telecom, capital goods, technology, cement, auto stocks, and ONGC in last one hour of the trade supported the markets to show smart bounce back from the lows of the day, though they ended lower.

The Sensex has touched an intraday low of 8,956.68 (down 428.74 points from previous close), before closing the day at 9,291.01, down 94.41 points or 1.01%. The Nifty shed 10.80 points or 0.38%, to end at 2799.55, after hitting a low of 2694.50 (fell 115.85 points from previous close).

Among the frontliners, HDFC Bank, Reliance Infrastructure, Tata Steel, DLF, HDFC, Unitech, Siemens, M&M and SAIL lost 4-4.7%. However, Wipro, ACC, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel, NALCO, Ambuja Cements and Power Grid Corp gained 2-5%.

BSE Midcap Index was down by 82.72 points or 2.57% at 3,133.36 and Small cap Index slipped 103.66 points or 2.75%, to close at 3,661.39.

Market breadth was dismal throughout the session; about 764 shares have advanced while 1907 shares have declined. Nearly 521 shares are unchanged.