Markets catapult on global cues

The Indian markets seemed to be in a hurry to prove the proponents of decoupling wrong yet again. Signifying the extent of market integration, the domestic bourses danced to the global tunes yet again. The US markets had sold off overnight and the Asian markets were reeling under selling pressure--enough to send our markets hurtling down an abyss of sorts. The Sensex closed at 15,791, weaker by 434 points and the Nifty ended at 4,714, down 130 points. At its intra-day low of 15725, the benchmark was down almost 10% in this calendar year till date.  Not to be left behind, the mid-cap and small-cap indices shed about 3% each.

The rise in initial jobless claims in the US, credit default concerns in Greece, Portugal and Spain, and a crash in commodity and energy prices took a toll on the global indices. The Dow Jones was precariously perched above the 10k mark at 10,002, weaker by 268 points and the Nasdaq closed lower by 65 points at 2125. The contagion spread across Asia, with the Hang Seng and Nikkei shedding around 3% each. And the European markets have shaved off around 1-2% in early hours of trade.
 
Hindalco tumbled 5.5% to Rs 138, Tata Steel slumped 4.6% to Rs 550 and ONGC slipped 4.5% to Rs 1087 on the BSE. Jaiprakash Associates, M&M and Reliance were the other significant losers. Reliance slipped to a 52-week low of  Rs 981.

Tata Power was the only Sensex stock to be resilient to the carnage around. The power major ended higher by 0.8% at Rs 1286.

Bajaj Hindusthan, Bombay Dyeing and Puravankara Projects were the major losers among mid-cap stocks, while Inox, Sree Ashtavinayak and Sakthi Sugars took it on the chin in the small-cap space.

The market breadth on the BSE was extremely negative. There were 2,369 declining stocks as against 486 advances.

Reliance topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 200.98 crore. This was followed by Tata Steel (Rs 157.45 crore), SBI (Rs 153.77 crore), HDIL (Rs 114.60 crore) and DLF (Rs 75.64 crore).

IFCI led the volume charts with trades of 14.74 million. It was followed by Unitech (10.56 million), Suzlon (8.65 million), Ispat (6.44 million) and Reliance Natural Resources (6.19 million).