Sensex recovers in late trade, ends 382.98 pts down

Mumbai, Jan 16: Despite recovering in late trade, the benchmark Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) failed to cover the negative gap and ended with a loss of 382.98 points at 19868.11 on weak global cues. The National Stocks Exchange (NSE)'s Nifty index, on the same sentiments, lost 138.50 points, or 2.28 per cent, to close below the 6K level at 5935.75 from its previous close of 6074.25. It touched the day's low of 5825.75.

The Sensex resumed the day on a weak note at 20079.89 and further lost ground on extended selling pressure, triggered by the prevailing weak glogal cues. It tumbled into deep negative zone to touch a day's low of 19513.25, shedding over 700 points amid high volatile trade in the afternoon trade. However, the market recovered at a slow pace on some gains in heavyweights but failed to cross the barrier of 20,000 till late trading session, traders said.

All the BSE sectoral indices ended in the red. Most of the frontline stocks, including HDFC Bank and Reliance Communications, were major losers from the Sensex pack. Capital goods, metal, realty and power stocks were the worst hit stocks.

The market breadth was weak.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was down 1.75 per cent at 9267.20 and Small-Cap index was down 1.83 per cent at 12522.22. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex. Among the sectoral indices, realty, power and metal declined 4.4 per cent, 3.67 per cent and 3.17 per cent respectively.

The FMCG index was down 2.05 per cent, PSU down 2.26 per cent, and capital goods down 2.47 per cent.

On the BSE, 613 shares advanced as against 2,215 shares that declined, while 31 remained unchanged. Twenty-four out of the 30 Sensex stocks were in the red.

The European and Asian markets traded in the red throughout the day and US markets plunged more than 2 per cent yesterday on worries of an economy recession.

UNI