Another volatile day: Sensex ends down 875 pts

The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 721 points at 16,884 on Tuesday, after the 1,408-point fall on Monday on weak global cues.

The index hit the 10% lower limit at 15,889 within minutes, and trading was suspended for an hour.

The index staged a dramatic recovery on resumption of trading, and zoomed to a high of 17,069.

The index was unable to hold gains as a fresh round of selling saw it slide to a low of 15,332 - down almost 13% (2,273 points) from the previous close.

Fresh buying in the last one-hour of trades saw the Sensex recover once again and finally finish with a loss of 875 points (5% ) at 16,730 - a recovery of 1,398 points from the day's low.

The NSE Nifty slumped to a low of 4,449, down 14.6% (760 points), recovered and ended with a loss of 6% (310 points) at 4,899.

The BSE breadth was extremely negative -- out of 2,454 stocks traded, 2,273 declined, 152 advanced and 29 were unchanged on Tuesday.

Index shakers. . .

ONGC crashed nearly 14% to Rs 962.
ITC and Hindalco slumped around 9.5% each to Rs 184 and Rs 150, respectively.
Mahindra & Mahindra plunged over 9% to Rs 611, and Ambuja Cements tumbled 8.5% to Rs 116.
Cipla and HDFC shed 8% each at Rs 175 and Rs 2,480, respectively.
Reliance and Tata Steel dropped over 7% each to Rs 2,358 and Rs 671, respectively. Hindustan Unilever slipped 6.8% to Rs 186.
Ranbaxy, Reliance Communications and BHEL slipped over 6% each to Rs 341, Rs 575 and Rs 1,985, respectively.

. . . and the movers

Bharti Airtel advanced 2.5% to Rs 849. Tata Motors was up Rs 5 at Rs 658.

Most active counters

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 440.50 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs 413.50 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 404 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs 368 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 175 crore).
Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 3.74 crore shares followed by Reliance Petroleum (3.09 crore), Ispat Industries (2.33 crore), IFCI (2.20 crore) and Tata Teleservices (1.45 crore).

Slight recovery when it re-opened

The stock market re-opened after trading was suspended for one hour at the Bombay Stock Exchange after the benchmark Sensex fell to the low of 15,576.30 within minutes of opening, crossing the circuit limit of 10 per cent.

Early shock

On Monday, the 30-share barometer tumbled by 1,408 points on concerns regarding the American economy going into recession.

The market opened at 16,884.09 points. At the time suspension, the Sensex was quoted at 15,576.30 points, plunging 11.53 per cent from Monday's close.

A similar trend was witnessed at the National Stock Exchange, whose barometer Nifty opened at 5,203.35, and later spiralled downward to a low of 4,569.50, a slide of 12.1 per cent. It was last trading at 4,578.35 points.

If the Nifty falls another 306.93 points and the Sensex another 1,326.63 after the market opens at 10.55AM, then trading will be halted for another two hours, reported NDTV Profit.

This was the fourth instance that the market hit 10% lower circuit. The first time was during the Harshad Mehta scam in 1992, then in 2004, when the NDA lost to the Congress and in October 2007, when the P-Note issue was on. The Sensex lost 25% and the Nifty was down 28% from their life-time highs.

Additional inputs: PTI