Market slides in opening trade

The market opened on a weak note following overnight slide in US stocks and a surge in oil price to a record high above $120 a barrel. FMCG and consumer durables stocks moved higher, whereas IT and realty stocks slipped. Mid-caps and small-caps extended gains from the previous session.

US markets declined yesterday, 5 May 2008, with financial shares facing the maximum brunt on fears of Bank of America Corp likely to abandon its deal to buy Countrywide Financial Corp. However, Bank of America said after the closing bell that it remained committed to acquiring Countrywide.

Asian markets were mixed today, 6 May 2008. Key indices in China and Singapore were down 0.03% to 0.47%. However, key indices in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan were up 0.04% to 0.42%. Japanese markets are closed today on account of holiday.

At 10:20 IST, the 30-share BSE Sensex was down 47.28 points or 0.27% at 17,443.62. Sensex gained 11.25 points at day’s high of 17,502.15, hit at the onset of trading session. The index lost 79.3 points at day’s low of 17,411.60, hit in early trade.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 12 points or 0.23% at 5180.25.

The market breadth was strong on BSE with 998 shares advancing as compared to 731 stocks that declined. 51 stocks remained unchanged.

The BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.26% to 7,317.94 and BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.27% to 8,869.03.

India’s largest private sector firm by market capitalisation and oil refiner Reliance Industries was steady at Rs 2,665.

India’s largest private sector bank by assets ICICI Bank fell 0.15% to Rs 931.75.

India’s largest engineering and construction firm by revenue Larsen & Toubro fell 0.26% to Rs 3124.90.

The top Sensex gainers were, ITC (up 1.56% at Rs 224.15), Tata Steel (up 1.44% at Rs 814.10), Hindalco Industries (up 1.47% at Rs 185.95), ONGC (up 0.89% at Rs 1048.20), Bharat Heavy Electricals (up 0.97% at Rs 1922) and Cipla (up 0.93% at Rs 218).

Top Sensex losers were, Bharti Airtel (down 3.81% at Rs 859.80), DLF (down 1.57% at Rs 694.25), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 1.53% at Rs 667.15), Maruti Suzuki (down 1.58% at Rs 772), Reliance Infrastructure (down 1.13% at Rs 1499.75) and Infosys Technologies (down 0.89% at Rs 1771.45).

Liquor maker United Breweries (UB) was the most active stock on BSE in terms of turnover. The UB stock surged 14.94% to Rs 245 on a huge turnover of Rs 128.13 crore. The counter clocked a volume of 60.22 lakh shares as against average daily volume of 22,450 shares in past one quarter.