Sensex ends down 431 pts

The Sensex has ended (provisional) at 16,446 - down 431 points. Nifty ended down 119 points at 4,944.
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(Updated at 1435 hrs)

Markets continued to slide in late noon trades with selling pressure in realty and oil stocks. The Sensex neglected a declining food inflation data to drop to a low of 16,487 and is now trading at 16,558 - down 319 points. Nifty is down 99 points at 4,964.

On the political front, a court accepted a plea seeking a probe into the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the alleged rigging of mobile-phone license allocations in 2008.

Food inflation fell sharply to 6.6% for the week ended November 26, reflecting a decline in prices of essential items like vegetables, onions, potatoes and wheat.

Food inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), stood at 8% in the previous week ended November 19. It was recorded at 8.93% in the corresponding period last year.

Rate sensitive banking and realty shares fell on profit booking after recent gains. BSE realty index shed 3.3% to 1,606 while bankex dropped 2% to 10,331. BSE metal index dropped 2.6% mirroring losses in the London Metal Exchange.

BSE auto index was down 1.3% at 8,749 in spite of reports suggesting that domestic passenger car sales has increased by 7% to 171,131 units in November, 2011, from 159,939 units in the same month last year.

Mahindra & Mahindra slipped 3.4% to Rs 732. Tata Motors and Maruti were down around 1.5% each. Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp managed to stay in the green with marginal gains.

Wipro was among the few gainers in the Sensex - up 2% at Rs 412. The stock climbed after the news that Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, the global Hydralics business of the company has signed a joint venture contract with Kawasaki Heavy Industries in India to set up a large manufacturing facility for the manufacture of hydraulic pumps for excavators. Cipla and Sun Pharma from the pharma space inched up nearly 1% each.

Meanwhile, market heavyweight, Reliance was the biggest dragger and fell 3.6% at Rs 780. Jaiprakash Asscoiates, Hindalco, Larsen & Toubro and Sterlite fell between 4-5% each. Other losers included DLF, BHEL and SBI.

BSE market breadth was negative with 68% stocks declining and 27% advancing from the total 2,731 traded stocks.