Sensex ends below 18K; RIL, L&T, HUL, NTPC, ICICI Bk drag
28 Jul 2010
Equity benchmarks - the Nifty and the Sensex ended below 5,400 and 18,000 levels, respectively, for the first time in the last five sessions, led by a sell-off in heavyweights like Reliance Industries (post results), L&T, NTPC, HUL, ICICI Bank, DLF (ahead of numbers) and HDFC.
Vijay Bhambwani of bsplindia.com said some amount of long unwinding was pretty much anticipated ahead of the derivatives expiry tomorrow. "I would lay greater emphasis at 5340 odd levels. Unless we close below that level, the momentum remains optimistic. Although a close above 5400 on a consistent closing basis would be a far more welcome indicator. But this is nothing that would seriously bother a positional or a momentum trader."
Realty, cement and select telecom companies' shares along with ONGC, Jindal Steel, Wipro, Hero Honda, Jaiprakash Associates and Maruti also witnessed selling pressure. However, SBI, ITC, TCS, HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, BHEL, SAIL, M&M, PNB, Tata Power, Idea Cellular, Tata Steel, Siemens and Hindalco were on the buyers' radar and managed to cap the losses to major extent.
Heavyweight Reliance Industries slipped over 3% in second half of trade despite slightly better-than-expected quarterly numbers. It was the record breaking quarter for the company; Mukesh Ambani group's flagship company reported net profit at Rs 4851 crore, a growth of 33.42% on year-on-year basis and net sales jumped 81.65% to Rs 58,228 crore.
Another largecaps L&T and HUL lost 2% & 3%, respectively. Both stocks were under pressure in today's trade as well, especially after quarterly numbers, which declared on Tuesday. L&T's numbers were quite disappointing while HUL's net profit was below markets expectations. DLF was down 2.5% ahead of its numbers today while Unitech slipped 2.7%.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 17,957.37, down 120.24 points or 0.67% and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 33.05 points or 0.61% to settle at 5,397.55, ahead of expiry day for the month of July 2010. The Nifty July futures ended at 4.5 points discount while August futures at 2.4 points premium, as per provisional data.