Sensex falls by 268 pts on profit-booking

Mumbai, Apr 25: The 30-share BSE Sensex today slumped 268.46 points to 11,646.78 due to across the board profit-booking.

Crude oil prices at USD 73.55 per barrel were one of the main worries for the market, affecting the margins in the manufacturing sectors which led to a continued slide of the markets.

Earlier the benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened firm at 11,943 with a gap of 27 points, but soon slipped into the red due to negative sentiment, after a long bull-run.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) S&P CNX Nifty index was down by 86 points to 3,462.65.

The pressure on the markets was from almost all sectors, led by the BSE metal index dipping by 2.93 per cent, BSE auto index also went down by 2.61 per cent, healthcare index was down by 2.59 per cent, IT index was down by1.89 per cent and teck index was down by 1.92 per cent. All other sectoral indices ended in the red, too.

Top losers on the Sensex were Ranbaxy, NTPC, Tata Power, Hindalco, Bajaj Auto, Tata Steel, Maruti, Grasim Industries, Infosys and TCS.

There were just two scrips that gained today - HDFC Bank and BHEL.

Godawari Power and Ispat Ltd made an impressive debut on the stock market today listing at a premium of more than 17 per cent at Rs 95 per share on the NSE, as against the issue price of Rs 81 for every Rs 10 share.

The scrip touched a high of Rs 135.80 in the intra-day trade before settling 26.17 per cent higher at Rs 102.20. The volumes were huge on the NSE with more than 1.54 crore shares worth Rs 183.96 crore getting traded.

The big losers on the Sensex were led by Cipla, down by 4.73 per cent at Rs 247.70; Tata Steel was down by 4.60 per cent to Rs 623.05; Tata Motors was down by 4.23 per cent to Rs 917.05; NTPC was down by 4.06 per cent to Rs 128.70 and Tata Power was down by 4.02 per cent to Rs 548.70.

Cement major ACC was down by 3.53 per cent to Rs 922.90; Maruti was down by 3.49 per cent to Rs 867.50; Reliance Energy was down by 3.46 per cent to Rs 613; Grasim Industries was down by 3.27 per cent to Rs 2,299.65 while Ranbaxy was down by 3.24 per cent to Rs 480.65.

Among the gainers - HDFC Bank was up by 0.46 per cent to Rs 825.60 and BHEL was up by 0.43 per cent to Rs 2,331.10.

Among the mid-cap losers were - Hindustan Zinc, falling by 12.38 per cent to Rs 897.55; Rashtriya Chemical and Fertilizers lost 7.65 per cent; Rolta lost 3.61 per cent to Rs 261.15, Hinduja TMT lost by 3.39 per cent to Rs 515.55 and Container Corporation of India lost 3.36 per cent to Rs 1,574.5.

The market breadth was negative with 1,087 advances only against 1,420 declines out of 2,574 scrips traded.

UNI