Sensex falls by 76 pts to close at 13,429.48

Mumbai, Nov 17 (UNI) After the record breaking spree for the last six days, the Sensex today crashed steeply by 76.41 points and closed at a low of 13,429.48 on the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE), due to profit booking by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and few domestic investors.

The market snapped the six sessions winning streak as investors booked profit. Banking, metal, auto and cement shares edged lower and a number of small-cap and mid-cap stocks lost ground.

But oil-marketing firms surged as crude oil price fell to one year low on Thursday.

The market breadth was quite weak. 1871 shares declined on BSE as compared to 657 shares that rose. 63 shares were unchanged.

The breadth weakened continuously during the course of the trading session.

The 30-share BSE Sensex lost 76.41 points or 0.5 per cent to settle at 13,429.48, before it resumed sharply at 13,678.04 which it maintained a day's high at the same level as was in the opening session. But day's lowest was at 13,383.43 during the mid-session.

The BSE METAL and SML CAP Indices plummetted steeply by 145.35 points and 124.71 points respectively and was quoted at 8789.55 for METAL index and for SML CAP index at 6359.47.

Similarly, BSE BANKEX and HC indices also crashed by 87.53 points and 69.63 points respectively and touched a low at 7124.85 for BANKEX index and for HC index at 3706.75 while AUTO and OIL and GAS indices declined by 60.34 points and 28.78 points respectively and was quoted low at 5211.41 for AUTO index and for OIL and GAS index at 6167.09.

Sensex had opened with a huge upward gap of 172.15 points at a record high of 13,678.04 but it came off immediately after striking the high. It was index heavyweight Infosys Technologies that caused a spike in Sensex at open followed by its sharp fall from the record peak instantly.

Rise in each of the past 6 trading sessions had taken Sensex to a new closing high of 13,505.89 yesterday from 13,072.51 on November 8. BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 4472 crore today compared to Thursday's Rs 6125.73 crore.

Meanwhile, S AND P, CNX Nifty index of NSE also closed low at 3852.80 with a modest loss of 24.05 points from it previous close of 3876.85, before it opened flat at 3877.00. Later it went upto 3,891.85 and came down at 3,835.70, brokers said.

Oil marketing firms surged as crude oil price fell to a one year low on Thursday. BPCL (Rs 378.90), Indian Oil Corporation (Rs 511.05) and HPCL (Rs 319.90) rose between 4.7 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively. NTPC jumped nearly 4 per cent to Rs 140.30. The company today said it planned to invest Rs 3425 crore to set up a 520-megawatt hydro power project.

Housing finance major HDFC rose 3.3 per cent to Rs 1608 on the reckoning that the housing loan demand may remain strong. The stock hit a high of Rs 1616 which is a new peak for the scrip.

Dr Reddy's Lab lost nearly 5 per cent to Rs 738. The pricing of its ADR issue at USD 16 per ADR was below market expectation and this hit the counter.

Infosys shed 0.1 per cent to Rs 2190. The stock had surged over nine per cent in opening trade to Rs 2401 due to a punching error.

Sterlite Industries was down by six per cent to Rs 510. But Hindalco fell marginally by 0.8 per cent to Rs 174.25. Sterlite had on Thursday filed for a mega USD 2 billion ADR issue.

The latest data showing a rise in inflation pulled shares of private sector banks lower. ICICI Bank lost 1.2 per cent to Rs 877 and HDFC dropped 1.9 per cent to Rs 1122. But State Bank of India (up 0.7 per cent to Rs 1229) ended in the positive zone after a block deal in FII segment was executed in the scrip at 19 per cent premium to the market price.

Reliance Industries lost 0.4 per cent to Rs 1258.10. Reliance Industries has bagged an offshore exploration block in Timor Leste.

RIL will have a majority interest and operator-ship in that block, RIL said today. Reports on Thursday said Reliance Industries had raised the gas production estimate of its D-6 block in the Krishna Godavari basin to 120 mmscmd from the initial development plan of 40 mmscmd Zee Telefilms rose 0.4 per cent to Rs 334.50. Zee Telefilms today said the Bombay High Court has approved its demerger scheme which paves the way for fixing the date for the demerger of the cable and distribution and news and regional broadcasting businesses of Zee into Wire&Wireless India Ltd (WWIL) and Zee News Ltd (ZNL) respectively. The said Date is likely to fall in the latter half of December. The shareholders of the company then will be allotted shares in WWIL&Zee. The company expects this process to be completed by February 2007, brokers said.

UNI

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