Sensex slips 193 points; realty stocks tumble

Despite 240-points fall on Friday, the Sensex opened this morning at 11,997 -- up 121 points amid positive cues from the global markets. The index soon touched a high of 12,027, but could not hold gains for long as considerable weakness in realty stocks dragged the index into the negative zone.

The index tumbled to a low of 11,621 - down 406 points from the day's high. The Sensex finally ended with a loss of 193 points at 11,683. In the process, the index has shed 434 points in the last two trading days as investors await the elections results this weekend.

The NSE Nifty ended at 3,555, down 66 points.

However, it may be noted that the index has surged 42.7 per cent in the last nine straight weeks.

The BSE Realty index declined over 5.5 per cent to 2,355. The market breadth was negative- out of 2,580 shares traded, 1,569 declined and 920 advanced.

INDEX SHAKERS...

DLF shed 5 per cent to Rs 228.  SBI, Reliance Communications and Jaiprakash Associates declined over 4.5 per cent each to 1,261, Rs 219 and Rs 133, respectively.

Tata Motors and Tata Steel slumped 4 per cent each to Rs 257 and Rs 271, respectively.

. . .AND THE MOVER

Mahindra & Mahindra advanced 1.5 per cent to Rs 502.

OTHER PROMINENT LOSERS...

Unitech and India Cements plunged nearly 9 per cent each to Rs 48 and Rs 110, respectively. Pantaloons Retail, Hindustan Copper, Godrej Industries, Nagarjuna Constructions, Century Textiles, Ispat Industries, Videocon, Sun TV, Torrent Pharma, IVRCL Infrastrucutre, Ashok Leyland, Everest Kanto, CESC, Reliance Capital, RECL, HCL Technologies and Cairn India declined (5-8 per cent) each.

...AND THE GAINERS

Tulip Telecom zoomed over 9 per cent to Rs 622. Zee Entertainment, Sesa Goa, Indiabulls Financial, Petronet LNG, Educomp Solutions, Gujarat NRE Coke, JSW Steel, Bank of Baroda and UCO Bank gained from (3-5 per cent each).

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS. . .

ICICI Bank  topped the value chart with a total turnover of Rs 193.70 crore. It was followed by SBI (Rs 182.29crore), Reliance (Rs 173.77 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 165.76 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs 152.59 crore).

Cals Refineries led the volume chart with trades of around 38.13 million shares. It  was  followed by Unitech (20.49 million), Dish TV (19 million), Kashyap Technologies (12.82 million) and Ispat Industries (12.42 million).