Sensex slips into red, ends below 9000 level

Mumbai, Nov 19: The 30 scrip sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) drifted lower for the sixth consecutive session on Wednesday, Nov 19 by 163.42 points to end at 8773.78 points on renewed selling pressure by Foreign Institutional Investors and dismal cues from European markets.

The Sensex resumed high at 8970.67 points, surged by 33.47 points, and later recorded the day's high at 9236.27 and a low at 8726.80. However, it jumped by 509.47 points in intra day trade. The Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed flat at 2682.75 and later registered the day's high at 2772.40 and a low at 2617.90. Finally, it closed in negative terrain at 2635.00 with a small loss of 48.15. The markets wiped out earlier gains in the last hour of trade and ended on a weak note. However, at the start of trade, it looked like the markets would reverse this trend and hold on to their psychological levels, but that did not happen. The Nifty closed below 2,650 level while the Sensex settled below 8,800.

Selling pressure was seen in capital goods, power, banking, oil, metal, telecom and technology stocks. Midcap and small cap stocks also followed the same trend, due to which breadth remained weak.

On the global front, European markets were trading weak. FTSE was down 77 points to 4,134. CAC and DAX fell 52 points and 62 points to 3,165 and 4,517, respectively.

US futures were also witnessing selling pressure. The Dow Jones Futures was down 119 points to 8,375 and the Nasdaq Futures went down 21 points to 1,153 and Asian markets ended lower barring Shanghai. Hang Seng lost 0.77 pc and Nikkei fell 0.66 pc. Taiwan and Jakarta tumbled 0.49 pc and 0.80 pc, respectively. Straits Times and Kospi fell 1.59 pc and 1.87 pc.

The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 3538 crore today as compared to a turnover of Rs 3,031.86 crore yesterday. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned weak from an earlier positive position. 786 shares rose as compared with 1,711 that declined. A total of 76 shares remained unchanged.

On the BSE, key indices declined as CG index eased steeply by 229.74 points and ended in red at 6396.76 points followed by BANKEX index by 135.53 to 4596.95 points, METAL index by 80.14 to 4436.14 points, PSU index by 78.12 to 4453.96 points, SML CAP index by 65.54 to 3493.12 points, OIL&GAS index by 64.54 to 5507.48 points,MID CAP by 61.93 to 2998.39 points, POWER index by 42.06 to 1529.92 points,IT index by 37.12 to 2410.64 points and TECK index by 36.70 to 1898.09 points.

The key heavyweight stocks were losers as Jaiprakash Asso lost ground by 6.04 per cent to close low at Rs 63.80, Hindalco by 5.19 pc to Rs 50.20, REL COM Ltd by 5.15 pc to Rs 198.80, Grasim by 4.62 pc to Rs 930.65, L&T by 4.12 pc to Rs 732.20, REL INFRA by 3.99 pc to Rs 455.90, HDFC by 3.74 pc to Rs 1366.10, ICICI Bank by 3.62 pc to Rs 347.70, Satyam Comp by 3.57 pc to Rs 233.45, HDFC Bank by 3.28 pc to Rs 887.00, Wipro by 3.18 pc to Rs 222.55, BHEL by 2.81 pc to Rs 1231, SBI by 2.60 pc to Rs 1079.50, Tata Motors by 2.52 pc to135.20, NTPC by 2.30 pc to Rs136, ONGC Ltd by 2.28 pc to Rs 652.55, Bharti Airtel by 1.82 pc to Rs 611.65,Tata Steel by 1.67 pc to Rs 162 and ACC by 0.90 pc to Rs 401.60.

However, a few heavyweight shares were gainers as ITC Ltd moved up by 2.80 per cent to close firm at Rs 165.20, Ranbaxy Lab by 1.86 pc to Rs 216.40 and Mahindra&Mahindra by 1.03 pc to Rs 303.50.

UNI