Sensex slips by 126 points at opening session

Mumbai, May 8: The key Benchmark Sensex of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today resumed on southbound at 17,212.61 points with a massive loss of 126.70 from its last close of 17,339.31 on weak global cues and selling pressure in banking, technology, realty, telecom, capital goods, power and oil marketing stocks. The 30 scrips of sensitive index is likely to quote below 17,000 barriers in today's mid-session. The current Sensex crashed by 285 and touched a low at 17,054.31 points from its last close.

Similarly, the present S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE also quoted below at 5,100 mark and touching a low at 5,077.05 points from its last close of 5,135.50 points. It resumed flat at 5,135.80, later recorded the day's high at 5,143.05 and a low at 5,065.90 points. Brokers said, there was an all round selling pressure as technology, capital goods, metal, auto and other heavy weight stocks drifted lower till mid-morning session. Midcap and small cap stocks were also trading lower. Wipro and Unitech were among the top losers.

Power and small cap stocks are also trading lower. Market breadth was negative. On the global front, Asian markets were still trading in red. Asian markets were trading lower. Hang Seng was down 221.38 points or 0.87 per cent at 25,388.38. Jakarta Composite fell 1.09 per cent or 25.98 points at 2,356.72. Nikkei 225 Average was down 0.85 per cent or 119.19 points at 13,983.29. Straits Times was down 67.69 points or 2.1 per cent at 3,161.26. Seoul Composite fell 11.44 points or 0.62 per cent at 1,842.57. Taiwan Weighted fell 111.86 points or 1.25 per cent at 8,814.48, which reflected to downward trend at the Indian bources, brokers pointed out.

Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and Unitech were top losers while top gainers were Reliance Comm, ACC, Ambuja Cements, Tata Comm, Tata Steel and Idea Cellular. Aishwarya Telecom, Cairn India, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries and Infosys were most active shares on the bourses. Market breadh was negative, around 1,055 shares advanced, 1,825 shares declined, and 206 shares are unchanged.

Technology stocks have underperformed the markets, BSE IT Index slipped over 2.9 per cent. Realty and Bankex were down over 1.9 per cent. FMCG, Capital Goods and Power indices fell over 1.5 per cent.

Oil&Gas, Metal, Healthcare and Auto also slipped over 0.5 per cent. The Indian Rupee has been depreciating as against US Dollar, currently trading at 41.67 per Dollar.

Sail, ICICI Bank, Idea, Reliance Comm, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, SBI, Unitech and HDFC Bank were losers in early trade. Technology and major banking stocks were down as their ADRs slipped.

The key height stocks were lower, hit by negative global cues. Spiraling crude oil prices continued to weigh on investor sentiment. All the sectoral indices on BSE were in the negative territory. IT and realty stocks suffered the most.

Oil prices for June 2008 delivery fell 6 per cent to USD 123.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange today, in Asia after jumping to a record of USD 123.93 a barrel yesterday.

US markets suffered sharp losses on yesterday, on worries about inflation and higher interest rates as oil jumped to a record. Financials stocks took a beating on concerns that new disclosure requirements for investment banks will limit their profits. The Dow Jones industrial average slumped 206.48 points, or 1.59 per cent, to 12,814.35. The Nasdaq Composite index fell 44.82 points, or 1.80 per cent, to 2,438.49. The S&P 500 shed 26 points at 1,393.

India's largest private sector firm by market capitalisation and oil refiner Reliance Industries fell 0.13 per cent 9 per cent at Rs 2,678.80. India's largest private sector bank by assets ICICI Bank fell 2.49 per cent to Rs 896. India's largest engineering and construction firm by revenue Larsen&Toubro fell 1.36 per cent to Rs 2946.

The top Sensex losers were, Satyam Computer was down by 3.13 per cent at Rs 474 followed by Infosys Technologies by 2.99 per cent at Rs 1,788.15, Wipro by 2.83 per cent at Rs 485, Jaiprakash Associates by 2.55 per cent at Rs 267.80, HDFC Bank by 2.16 per cent at Rs 1,509.45 and DLF by 1.62 per cent at Rs 640.45.

Top Sensex gainers were, Reliance Communication was up by 1.61 per cent at Rs 548.95, Bharti Airtel gained by 0.88 per cent at Rs 823, ACC rose 0.90 per cent at Rs 743.80, Hindustan Unilever gained 0.36 per cent at Rs 252, Ambuja Cements rose 0.31 at Rs 111.50.

Aishwarya Telecom was the most active stock on BSE in terms of turnover. The stocks was down 3.63 per cent at Rs 87.55 on a turnover of Rs 43.32 crore.

Aishwarya Telecom had debuted on Wednesday at Rs 50.10 on BSE, a premium of 43.14 per cent over its issue price of Rs 35. It settled at Rs 90.85 on BSE, a huge premium of 159.57 per cent over its issue price, brokers added.

UNI