Sensex nosedives 122 pts after opening in green

Mumbai, Mar 4: The benchmark Sensex of Bombay Stock Exchange slipped down over 122 points at 16,541.15 on fresh profit booking interest in the blue-chips in the early trade, after opening in green.

Sensex, which pluged heavily in the previous session, opened the day with a positive gap of 64.32 points at 16,742.20 after closing at 16,677.88 in the previous session, amid jittery trade with some initial buying interest in the early session. Later, it failed to hold the gains and skid into red, broker said. Meanwhile, the broader CNX S&P Nifty index of National Stock Exchange was down over 45 points at 4907.10. Most of the sectoral indices on BSE, sparing realty, capital goods and FMCG index, were in the positive territory. 22 out of 30 stocks from the Sensex pack were in the green. The market breadth was weak.

The market will remain closed from 1145 hrs to 1225 hrs (IST) due to sun outage. Trading time has been extended till 16:15 hrs (IST). The changes in timings will be applicable from today, 4 March 2008 to 18 March 2008.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.35 per cent at 7,339.21, while the BSE Small-Cap was down 0.83 per cent at 9,161.97. The market breadth was weak, on BSE, 654 advanced as compared to 1206 that declined. 43 stocks remained unchanged.

Frontliners, Reliance Industries (RIL) rose 0.88 per cent to Rs 2325.05, ICICI Bank slipped 0.14 per cent at Rs 1023 and Larsen&Toubro fell 2.39 per cent to Rs 3264.

Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) up 3.14 per cent at Rs 2652, Ranbaxy Laboratories up 2.10 per cent at Rs 460, Mahindra&Mahindra up 1.44 per cent at Rs 694.10, Maruti Suzuki up 1.62 per cent at Rs 888.50 and Reliance Energy up 1.53 per cent at Rs 1508.

As per provisional data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 711.31 crore on March 3. Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) were net buyers of shares worth Rs 80.47 crore on that day.

FIIs were net sellers of Rs 304.51 crore in the futures&options segment on March 3 . They were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 706.15 crore and bought index options worth Rs 276.41 crore. They were net buyers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 127.21 crore and sold stock options worth Rs 1.97 crore.

UNI