Sensex slums by 101 pts in the opening session

Mumbai, Oct 27 (UNI) The Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today opened in the red at 8,599.58 points, with a massive loss of 101.49 points, in a volatile trade due to lack of follow up support from Foreign Institutional Investors and local institutional investors.

Later, the BSE 30-share Sensex slid further down by 457.30 points, or 5.26 pc, to 8,243.77. Thse Sensex recorded the day's high and a low at 8,739.48 and 8,057.18 points respectively.

The S &P CNX Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also resumed low at 2,583.75 points from its last close of 2,584.00. It recorded the day's low at 2,362.80. The Nifty is currently trading low at 2,425.35 points, with a massive loss of 158.65 points.

Brokers said ''Banking stocks dragged down the market from positive territory that it had clawed into after opening in the red.

But for index heavyweight Reliance Industries, the fall could have been even steeper as global markets tumbled to new five-year lows on investors withdrawing from equity markets on worries a global economic slowdown would hurt corporate profitability. Key benchmark indices in countries like China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan were down between 0.46 per cent and 5.57 per cent. The US markets had declined in volatile trade on last Friday, as fears of a full-blown global recession intensified and investors dumped risky assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 312.30 points, or 3.59 pc, to 8,378.95. The S &P 500 index slipped 31.34 points, or 3.45 pc, to 876.77, and the Nasdaq Composite index lost 51.88 points, or 3.23 pc, to 1,552.03.

Volatility is likely to remain high as derivative contracts for October 2008 series will expire on October 29. As per reports, marketwide rollover of positions was 37 pc, while that of Nifty stood at 45 pc from October 2008 series to November 2007, by October 24. The rollovers are fairly high, indicating market players are uncertain about the direction of the market.

HDFC Bank lost 8.31 pc to Rs 891.85 and was the top loser among the Sensex pack. India's second largest private sector bank by market capitalisation, ICICI Bank, slipped 4.68 pc to Rs 298.50 ahead of its Q2 September 2008 results today. In the midst of a credit turmoil gripping economies across the world, marketmen will focus on ICICI Bank's result for its exposure to some of the crisis-ridden institutions in the US including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

India's largest state-run bank by net profit, State Bank of India (SBI), fell 6.60 pc to Rs 1,080 on muted growth in consolidated net profit in Q2 September. In its results declared before market hours today, SBI reported a 10.60 pc rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,378.19 crore on a 26.4 pc increase in total income to Rs 27,083.47 crore in Q2 September 2008 over Q2 September 2007. The consolidated earnings include numbers from recently-acquired State Bank of Saurashtra.

NTPC was down 7.57 pc to Rs 120.95, Ranbaxy came down 6.59 pc to Rs 176.50 and Maruti Suzuki India eased by 7.24 pc to Rs 494.90 were the other key losers among the Sensex pack.

Reliance Industries (RIL) rose by 1.41 pc to Rs 1,029.80 in a volatile trade, rebounding from its 52-week low of Rs 985.10 hit in early trade. Bharti Airtel rose 0.29 pc to Rs 536. The stock moved in a range of Rs 552 and Rs 502.20 in choppy trade.

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