Sensex closes 133 points down; auto stocks plunge (Roundup)

A benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Friday's trade down 133 points or 0.46 percent as interest sensitive stocks like automobiles and bank plunged.

Heavy selling pressure was seen in automobile, bank, healthcare, capital goods, oil and gas, consumer durables and metal stocks while information technology (IT), fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and technology, entertainment and media (TECK) scrips gained.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 28,892.21 points, closed the day's trade 28,717.91 points, down 133.06 points or 0.46 percent from the previous day's close at 28,850.97 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 28,922.85 points and a low of 28,647.14 points in the intra-day trade.

"Poor third quarter results from respective companies are impacting market and beta stocks too. Based to which concerns are being shown towards banks, metals and auto sectors," said Vinod Nair, head-fundamental research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

"The management outlook continues to be robust linking improvement in demand by the latter half. Hence based to budget outcome volatility can be stabilised."

The S&P BSE automobile index plunged 541.95 points, bank index was lower by 277.77 points, healthcare index fell by 266.38 points, capital goods index lost 123.90 points, oil and gas index declined by 110.79 points, consumer durables index was down 105.94 points and metal index decreased by 80.35 points.

However, IT index was up 102.63 points, FMCG index was higher by 68.83 points and TECK index rose 46.22 points.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) too closed in the red. It was down 50.65 points or 0.58 percent at 8,661.05 points.

The major Sensex gainers were HDFC, up 2.45 percent at Rs.1,279.50; Infoysy, up 1.63 percent at Rs.2,229.35; Seas Sterlite, up 1.35 percent at Rs.210.60; ITC, up 1.32 percent at Rs.373.50; and Bharti Airtel, up 1.14 percent at Rs.367.55.

The losers were Tata Motors, down 5.05 percent at Rs.559.75; BHEL, down 4.79 percent at Rs.264.20; Sun Pharma, down 2.98 percent at Rs.928.60; Tata Steel, down 2.67 percent at Rs.369.30; and Mahindra and Mahindra, down 2.59 percent at Rs.1,149.20.

--Indo-Asian News Srvice

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