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C. Raja Rajeshwari

THE markets tumbled into the negative territory for the second consecutive day. The market breadth was weak with 1,100 stocks declining as compared to 752 stocks appreciating. The decline was prominent in the A-group, with 78 per cent of the total 201 stocks declining.

The BSE Sensex opened the day lower by 22.7 points at 4868.43 than Tuesday's close of 4891.13 points. The index slid to a mid-day low of 4800.67 points before pulling back to close at 4823.73 points (67.40 points decline). The BSE Sensex has lost 116.5 points in the last two trading days.

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Among the Sensex constituents, gains from Infosys, Gujarat Ambuja, ITC, Bharti Televentures and Wipro were chipped off by the weakness in Zee Telefilms, L&T, Reliance Energy, Grasim and ICICI Bank.

Reliance, which has a 6.82 per cent weightage in the Sensex, slid by 1.13 per cent to close at Rs 460.50. Zee Telefilms closed lower by 5.4 per cent at Rs 129.5 and L&T lower by 4.8 per cent to Rs 368.7.

The broad based Nifty declined 1.52 per cent to close at 1540.60 points. The Nifty lost 39.3 points in two consecutive days.

Notable losers among the Nifty constituents were Shipping Corporation of India. The stock declined by 7.31 per cent to Rs 142.65 in the NSE. About 29.3 lakh shares were traded in the NSE.

The flavour of Wednesday's trading was textile and tech stocks. Among the textile stocks, those in the limelight were Malwa Cotton Spinning Mills, appreciated by 20 per cent to Rs 57, Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills, higher by 9.96 per cent to Rs 49.15, Vardhman Spinning and General Mills was up by 5.49 per cent to Rs 121 and Mahavir Spinning Mills, higher by 3.27 per cent to Rs 131.

Among tech stocks, notable gainers were HCL Technologies, NIIT and GTL, which were up by 5.3 per cent (Rs 247.75), 3.1 per cent (Rs 203.8) and 3.2 per cent (Rs 61.3) respectively.

Blocks deals in UTI Bank sent the stock zooming 11.65 per cent to Rs 81.70. Other gainers were IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya Bank and Federal Bank. PSU banks closed with losses. Notable losers were Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank, SBI and Bank of Baroda. The BSE BANKEX closed the day lower by 2 per cent at 2273.06 points.

Notable losers were Tata Steel, Escorts, Balaji Telefilms, Exide Industries, Century Textiles, Thomas Cook, Raymond, Apollo Tyres and IOC.

Coromandel Fertilisers closed the day marginally lower at Rs 117. The company had intimated the exchange that it will sell five per cent of its stake in Godavari Fertilisers and Chemicals to Fosker, South Africa. In addition, another 5 per cent stake would be offloaded to a strategic partner, the company said.

Select chemical stocks too were in the limelight. Coates of India gained 7.3 per cent to Rs 130.

The stock touched a new 52-week high of Rs 134 in intraday trades. United Phosphorus gained 5.6 per cent to Rs 498.1; Schenectady Heridilia gained 5 per cent to Rs 50.55, Bihar Caustic and Chemicals higher by 2 per cent to Rs 32.9 and Ciba Specialty Chemicals up by 1.36 per cent to Rs 130.90. However, Tata Chemicals declined by 3.48 per cent to Rs 129.10. Stocks that were frozen in the lower circuit filter were Monsanto (Rs 1,112.4), Philips Carbon Black (Rs 78.85) and KRBL (Rs 44.15).

In the F&O segment on the NSE, Nifty November futures were the most sought after. There was a 10.09 per cent increase in the open interest, which is at more than 29,000 contracts. The futures closed with a premium of 5.25 points to the spot close.

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