Post-Market Report dated April 08, 2008

The market succumbed to weak international markets and lost over 1% amid heavy selling in heavyweights, CG, Metal and IT stocks.
After yesterday's strong upsurge of 414 points, the market failed to rally further as weak Asian indices and flat close on US bourses weighed on the sentiment.

Barring the consumer durables (CD) and Bankex stocks, selling was visible in all the sectors. The benchmark Sensex opened with a positive gap of 13 points at 15,770 and never recovered from the early slump. While the market moved in a range below 15,600 for better part of the trading session, the index witnessed a fall towards the mid hours and nearly breached the 15,000 mark to touch the day's low of 15,479. The Sensex however pared losses on selective gains and ended the session with losses of 169 points at 15,588, while the Nifty declined 52 points to close at 4,710

However, the market breadth was positive. Of the 2,672 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 1,393 stocks advanced, 1,210 stocks declined and 69 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Metal dropped sharply and lost 1.93% while the BSE CG index, the BSE IT index, the BSE Teck index and the BSE Realty index were down over 1% each. The BSE Bankex & the BSE CD index were the only gainers.

Heavyweights led the fall in the Sensex. Larsen & Toubro dropped 5.09% at Rs2,581, Wipro slumped 4.60% at Rs414, Jaiprakash Associates shed 4.48% at Rs221.55, Tata Steel lost 3.39% at Rs656.30, Ranbaxy Laboratories slipped by 2.71% at Rs470.75 and Grasim Industries tumbled 2.56% at Rs2,560. NTPC, Infosys, HUL and Maruti Suzuki declined over 2% each. Among the selective gainers, BHEL rose 4.67% at Rs1,712, while Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank and SBI ended with modest gains.

Metal stocks slipped sharply. SAIL dropped 6.14% at Rs157.55, Jindal Steel declined 4.49% at Rs1,812.75, NALCO lost 3.55% at Rs432.45 and Tata Steel slipped by 3.39% at Rs656.30. JSW Steel, SH Precoated, Jindal Saw, Maharashtra Steel and Hindalco were down around 1-2% each.

Among the gainers in the Bankex stocks, Yes Bank advanced 11.55% at Rs162.20, Union Bank rose 3.33% at Rs153.55, Federal Bank gained 3.31% at Rs228, Karnataka Bank added 2.37% at Rs205 and Kotak Bank was up 2.14% at Rs643.

Over 2.05 crore Orchid Chemical shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (1.14 crore shares), Sita Shree (1.06 crore shares), IB Securities (76.56 lakh shares) and RPL (71.11 lakh shares).