Nifty down 108 pts; ends below 4600 as heavyweights crash

The Sensex witnessed huge selling pressure in the last one hour of the trade after seeeing consolidation for the last two and half days. All the sectoral indices ended in the red; auto, realty, metal, FMCG, infrastructure and technology stocks saw huge gap down and pushed the Nifty below the 4600 mark on closing basis.

Major downfall was seen in the auto space, respective index lost 4.4%. Poor rainfall might be the cause for the sell-off in auto stocks. Another reason could be profit booking as they saw huge upside post good Q1 earnings and monthly sales numbers. Tata Motors plunged 6.93% and Ashok Leyland down 6.25%. Maruti Suzuki and Hero Honda fell over 5%. Amtek Auto and M&M lost over 4%.

The 50-share NSE Nifty touched an intraday low of 4559.20, before closing 2.31% or 108.65 points lower, at 4585.50. The 30-share BSE Sensex ended at 15,514.03, down 2.45% or 389.80 points, after seeing a low of 15,443.22. Advance:decline ratio ended at 1:2, which was 2:1 post noon.

The Nifty futures swung between premium and discount in today's trade. As per the provisional data, the Nifty 4600 Call added 6 lakh shares in OI (open interest) and the Nifty 4600 Put added 4 lakh shares in OI (Nifty 4600 Put had added 10 lakh shares by 2:30 pm). Huge undwinding was seen in Ispat Industries, Firstsource and MRPL. These stocks shed 57 lakh shares, 54 lakh and 8 lakh shares in OI, respectively. They lost 5-6%.

All the sectoral indices ended in the red. BSE Realty, FMCG and Metal indices fell over 3%. Power, Capital Goods, IT, TECk, Bank and Oil & Gas indices slipped 1.5-2.3%. Among the broader indices, the BSE Midcap Index lost 2.4% and the Smallcap Index was down 1.3%.

In the realty space, Indiabulls Real tumbled 8.04%. Sobha Developer, HDIL, Omaxe, DLF, Ackruti City and Unitech were down 2-3.6%.