Sensex sheds 183pts on profit booking

The markets opened on bright note today morning after a holiday on Wednesday, however the joys were shortlived as the markets came tumbling down towards the close.

The US markets ended on a buoyant note. The Dow closed at 11,123, stronger by 103 points and the Nasdaq ended at 2504, higher by 38 points, respectively. The Asian markets even opened higher. The indices were around 1% up.

Along with the global vibes, the momentum in the domestic market was kept alive owing to strength in the realty, metal and auto stocks. Suprisingly the rate sensitive sectors like realty,auto moved up while the banking sector bucked the trend on fears of RBI rate move early next week.

The Sensex touched a high of 17,975 in early morning trades. Profit booking re-emerged in the second half of the trading day and banking and oil & gas stocks bore the brunt of selling.

Extensive selling was witnessed in late trades which made the Sensex tumble to a low of 17,619, down 356 points from the day's high. The index finally ended at 17,639, down 189 points. The index in this process has lost around 300 points in the last three days .  The NSE Nifty crossed below the 5,300 mark and finally settled at 5,273, down 50 points.

The market breadth was negative, out of 2,999 shares traded, 1,694 declined and 1,231 advanced on the BSE.

Parsvnath Developers and Sobha Developers shed 6.5% each to 126 and Rs 313, respectively on the realty index.

Among the Sensex 30-stocks,Reliance Industries was the major dragger on the index, down 3% at Rs 1,090. It was followed by ICICI Bank and ITC, down 2.5% each.

The other major losers were Larsen & Toubro, SBI, HDFC and Hero Honda, down 1-2% each.

While Jaiprakash Associates, Hindustan Unilever and DLF were the only prominent gainers on the Sensex today, up 1% each at Rs 152, Rs 225 and Rs 339, respectively. IT major Infosys also settled with marginal gains, up 0.5%.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Industries has topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 139.64 crore. It was followed by Infosys (Rs 116.97 crore), Unitech (Rs 94.97 crore), SBI (Rs 77.13 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 72.56 crore).

Zee Entertainment led the volumes chart on the BSE with trades of 67.02 million shares. It was followed by Cals Refineries (38.85 million), Unitech (11.77 million), Birla Power (9.89 million) and BAG Films (8.67 million).