The Hindu Business Line : Markets tank; Reliance, SBI inflict damage

Reflective of the bearish undertone, the BSE Sensex dropped by 163.92 points or 2.8 per cent to settle at 5758.19. With the 142-point loss on Tuesday, the index has lost over 300 points in two trading sessions.

Click here for table

The S&P CNX Nifty recorded one of the biggest single day declines on Wednesday. The index declined by 68.65 points or 3.62 per cent to 1824.6. The sharp decline in the share price of Reliance Industries, State Bank of India and Tata Steel was instrumental in inflicting damage to the indices.

Only two out of the 30 stocks that constitute the index managed to record gains on Wednesday. Except for Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Bharti Tele-Ventures, the other Sensex stocks were confined to the losers list. The share price of Bharti Tele-Ventures rose by Rs 5.75 to Rs 124.15.

It was not as though the carnage was confined to the front line large-cap stocks. Quite a few small and mid-cap stocks too took a drubbing on Wednesday. The S&P CNX 500 index dropped 5.21 per cent to 1466.15, while the CNX Midcap 200 index dropped by 6.89 per cent to 1661.5.

Apart from Reliance and SBI, Tata Power, ONGC, Hero Honda and Wipro were other prominent losers among the index-constituents. The share price of ONGC declined by 10 per cent to Rs.738.25 and Tata Power by 9.4 per cent to Rs.347.5.

Unmindful of the improved quarterly performance, the share price of Wipro dropped by 4.68 per cent to Rs 1,634. Earlier in the day, the company had reported a 37 per cent rise in turnover and 19 per cent growth in post-tax earnings for the quarter ended December 2003.

Along with Wipro, i-flex Solutions, Polaris and HCL Infosystems were other prominent losers from the software sector. The share price of i-flex dropped by 8.3 per cent to Rs 676.

The likes of Sundaram Clayton, MphasiS BFL and Premier Instruments were amongst the handful of gainers of the day. The Sundaram Clayton stock increased by about 2 per cent to Rs 593.5.