Sensex down by 94.41 points at 9,291 mark

Mumbai, Nov 17: The Sensex continued to slide for the fourth consecutive session, ending marginally lower on Monday, Nov 17 by 94.41 points tofinish in red at 9291.01 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on profit booking at higher levels in key stocks by Foreign Institutional Investors and downslide in global markets.

The market recovered ground in the last one hour of trade after plunging below the 9,000 level during the day. The Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) was also quoted below 2,800 mark and ended in negative terrain at 2799.55 with a small loss of 10.80 points from its last close of 2810.35. Brokers said the markets ended marginally lower, despite showing smart recovery in last one hour of the trade. Realty, metal, banking, pharma and select oil stocks remained under pressure.

Midcap and small cap stocks followed the same trend. However, buying was seen in Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Infosys, Wipro, NTPC, BHEL, ACC, Ambuja Cements, Maruti and Tata Motors.

The benchmark indices had opened marginally higher and as the day progressed, both turned into red. The Nifty and the Sensex had also slipped below 2700 and 9000 levels during the day, respectively.

However, buying in select telecom, capital goods, technology, cement, auto stocks, and ONGC in last one hour of the trade supported the markets to show smart bounce back from the lows of the day, though they ended lower.

The Reserve Bank of India last Saturday allowed housing finance companies to raise short-term foreign-currency loans. This is a temporary step only available to companies registered with the National Housing Bank. The move will provide much-needed funds for non-deposit taking housing finance companies, though details of this measure are awaited.

On the global front, European markets were trading lower. FTSE, CAC and DAX were down between 1 and 1.5 pc, Dow Jones Futures was down 11 points and Nasdaq Futures fell 2.5 points.

The Sensex touched an intraday low of 8,956.68 (down 428.74 points from previous close), before closing the day at 9,291.01, down 94.41 points or 1.01 pc. The Nifty shed 10.80 points or 0.38 pc, to end at 2799.55, after hitting a low of 2694.50 (fell 115.85 points from previous close).

Total traded turnover stood at Rs 53,207.59 crore. This includes Rs 8,897.30 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 41,086.89 crore from NSE F&O and the balance Rs 3,223.40 crore from BSE Cash segment. BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 3213 crore today as compard to a turnover of Rs 3,685.59 crore on November 14.

The market breadth was weak. On BSE, 689 shares rose as compared with 1794 that declined. 55 shares remained unchanged. Out of 30 Sensex stocks, 19 were trading in the red.

On the BSE, key indices suffered a setback as BANKEX index declined by 199.72 points to settle low at 4956.04 points, followed by METAL index by 150.30 to 4723.10 points, REALTY index by 104.02 to 1907.51 points, SML CAP by 103.66 to 3661.39 points, CG index by 82.91 to 6868.41 points, MID CAP by 82.72 to 3133.36 points, CD index by 63.32 to 1877.08 points, PSU index by 36.25 to 4741.68 points and FMCG index by 336.18 to 1870.50 points.

The top heavyweight stocks were losers as HDFC Bank slid by 7.71 pc to end low at Rs 933.60, REL INFRA by 6.23 pc to Rs 484.40, Tata Steel by 4.01 pc to Rs 166.30, DLF Ltd by 3.93 pc to Rs 231.45, HDFC by 3.94 pc to Rs 1498.30, Satyam Comp by 3.76 pc to Rs 251.80, Hindalco by 3.76 pc to Rs 54.70, Tata Power by 2.95 pc to Rs 724.35, ITC Ltd by 2.73 pc to Rs 165.55, M&M by 2.63 pc to Rs 322.00, ICICI Bank by 2.25 pc to Rs 387.05, TCS Ltd by 518.70, Jaiprakash Asso by 1.50 pc to Rs 72.40, Ranbaxy Lab by 1.26 pc to Rs 211.40, Reliance by 0.51 pc to Rs 1142.65,SBI by 0.17 pc to Rs 1168.10 and L&T by 0.11 pc to Rs790.65.

However, a few leading shares were gainers as Wipro was up by 4.59 pc to finish firm at Rs 251.95, ACC Ltd by 4.29 pc to Rs436.55, Tata Motors by 2.56 pc to Rs 140.45, maruti Suzuki by 2.45 pc to Rs 549.80, Bharti Airtel by 2.29 pc to Rs 665.05, NTPC by 1.24 pc to Rs 151.10,Infosys Tech by 1.22 pc to Rs 1232.80 and BHEL ended up by 1.03 pc to Rs 1293.25.

UNI