Sensex crashes by 167.18 points, closes in red

Mumbai, Feb 22: Continuing with the downslide for the thirdconsecutive day, the Sensex plunged by 167.18 points today on theBombay Stock Exchange and closed in the red at 14,021.31 points onsustained heavy selling pressure by mutual funds and other operators.

A sudden sell-off gripped the market in late trading on expiry ofFebruary 2007 derivative contracts. Much of the fall materialised inthe last 50 minutes of trade. Cement, auto, banking shares and pharmapivotals weakened in late trading.

The 30 scrips of sensitive index crashed by 281.59 points in thelast three days. The Sensex closed at a low of 14,021.31, a fall of167.18 points. It came off the lower level after having dropped as manyas 210.44 points, to a low of 13,978.05, at intra day trades. But for arelatively firm trend in index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL),the fall in the BSE Sensex might have been much steeper.

The BSE BANKEX and AUTO indices also plunged steeply by 177.81points and 103.53 points respectively. They closed at a low at 6998.97points for BANKEX index and for AUTO index at 5458.67 points, followedby CG index by 83.92 and finished at 9415.57 points, HC index by 79.69and quoted at 3708.72 points, PSU index by 78.64 and touched at 5999.36points and METAL index by 74.81 and closed at 8875.47 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE also closed at a low of4,040.00, a fall of around 56 points from its last close of 4096.20points before it resumed flat at 4096.65. Later it registered a high at4126.90 and a low at 4023.15 points respectively. The Nifty March 2007futures were at 4,064.

The market-breadth was quite weak. Against 1,799 shares decliningon BSE, 813 rose. 67 shares were unchanged. The BSE clocked a turnoverof Rs 3938 crore.

Although the market was volatile today, the sharpest movement cameonly in late trading. In early trade, the market had lost ground soonafter a strong opening, which was triggered by firm Asian markets anddata showing rising inflow of funds from FIIs.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Thursday he expects theinflation rate to moderate as supply shortages would ease in comingdays.

Asian and European markets were firm. Key benchmark indices inLondon, Germany and France were up between 0.5 and 0.6 per cent. InAsia, key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea were upbetween 0.7 per cent and 1 per cent, which did not impact on Indianbourses, brokers pointed out.

UNI

Related Stories