Sensex falls 368 points on weak metal, oil prices

Mumbai, Sept 11: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensitive index (sensex) today fell 368 points and settled at 11,550.69 due to weak metal prices on the London Metals Exchange and fall in crude oil price below 66 USD per barrel mark and this was the biggest intra-day loss suffered by the BSE sensex since July 17.

While the BSE Sensex lost 3 per cent to settle at 11,550.69, the S&P CNX Nifty too declined by 105.30 points or 3 per cent to settle at 3,366.15 points.

According to Nilesh Shah of Kotak AMC, the corrections were long overdue, however at current performance the sensex can grow further by 700 to 1,000 points to at least touch the previous high of 12,700 once the financial results are declared in October.

Crude oil prices tanked to a five-month low of less than US Dollar 66 per barrel mark, as Iran agreed to cap enrichment of Uranium for two months, also the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed not to reduce the production of Petrol.

Meanwhile, Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore too slid between 0.8 - 1.7 per cent. In Europe, key benchmark indices in London, Germany and France were down by 0.7 per cent each.

The breadth too in the broader market turned negative in favour of 1,971 declines as against 551 advances out of 2,568 scrips that traded the BSE counters.

The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 3,390 crore, compared to Friday's (8 September) Rs 3,459 crore.

Amongst the sectoral indices on BSE, Metals was down by 5.05 per cent followed by FMCG, which was down by 3.62 per cent, Capital Goods by 3.32 per cent and Health Care by 3.46 per cent.

Hero Hodna was the only gainer on the BSDE-30 Sensex up by 1.26 per cent to Rs 745.25.

Besides, the losers were-Reliance Energy down by 5.94 per cent to Rs 459.10, Tata Motors down by 5.56 per cent, Tata Steel down by 5.35 per cent to Rs 496.70, Hindalco down by 5.17 per cent to Rs 174.40, Cipla down by 4.53 per cent to Rs 245.00, HLL down by 4.52 per cent, Gujarat Ambuja down by 4.39 per cent to Rs 110.10, ACC down by 4.26 per cent to Rs 905.20, TCS down by 3.84 per cent to Rs 955.00 and Reliance Industries down by 3.79 per cent to Rs 1,087.65.

UNI