Sensex fall: Realty, Bankex at the forefront

Three sectoral indices --  Realty Index, Oil and Gas Index, and Bankex -- led the sharp fall in stock prices in the last five days, which saw the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex suffer its sharpest ever continuous drop.

The three indices fell nearly 9 per cent each between January 14 and January 18, 2008. Power, metals, IT, capital goods and consumer goods indices also declined by 5-8 per cent during the week.

Refineries have been the largest losers, recording a Rs 68,018 crore (Rs 680.18 billion) erosion in market capitalisation, while housing constructions, banks, power and telecom sectors' market capitalisation eroded between Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) and Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion).

All the 30 stocks in the benchmark Sensex were responsible for the fall, declining anywhere between 1 per cent and 16 per cent. Reliance Industries (RIL) and ICICI Bank jointly accounted for a major part of the downfall -- 37 per cent or 669.58 points.

RIL fell 10.50 per cent from Rs 3,128.10 on January 11 to close at Rs 2,799.50 on the BSE on Friday contributing a 351.92 points fall, while ICICI Bank accounted for a 317.66 points fall (13.51 per cent) to Rs 1,245.45 (Rs 1,439.95).

Reliance Communications, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Infosys Technologies, Reliance Energy, HDFC Bank and DLF combined contributed 680.95 points to the Sensex fall, accounting for more than 70 points each.

Infosys Technologies, Tech Mahindra, Satyam Computer Services, Patni Computers and NIIT Technologies from the IT sector closed at their 52-week lows on BSE.

Out of 2,953 actively traded stocks, as many as 826 stocks underperformed the Sensex, which had fallen 8.72 per cent in the five days. The frontline stocks mainly from A group declined sharply as compared to mid-cap and small-cap stocks.

The BSE Mid-cap Index fell by 5.77 per cent to 8,893.71 (9,438.48) and the Small-cap Index by 4.20 per cent to 12,160.45 (12,694.02) during the week.

Lanco Infratech, Spice Communications, Omaxe, CMC, DLF, Reliance Capital and Aurobindo Pharma are among the front-line A group stocks, which declined more than 15 per cent each.

In the non-A group stocks, TV18, Himachal Futuristic, Godrej Industries, Venky's India and Pudumjee Agro fell over 20 per cent each during the week.

Investors lost over Rs 500,000 crore (Rs 5000 billion) in terms of market capitalisation over the last one week. The total market capitalisation of actively traded stocks on the BSE declined by Rs 530,444 crore (Rs 5304.44 billion) from Rs 71,75,275 crore (Rs 71752.75 billion) a week ago to Rs 66,44,831 crore (Rs 66448.31 billion) on Friday.

In May 2006, the Sensex fell by 1,736.04 points or 14.21 per cent - from 12,217.81 to 10,481.77 - from May 18 to 22. The main trigger for the fall was heavy selling by FIIs, retail investors and a weakness in global markets.

The BSE Sensex fell by 8.71 per cent from 20,827.45 on January 14, 2008, to close at 19,013.70 on Friday. Friday's fall of 687.12 points was its third-largest single-day fall.

The S&P CNX Nifty too plunged by 494.80 points or 7.98 points to touch 5,705.30 (6,200.10). This is Nifty's second largest fall since the inception of the National Stock Exchange. In May 2006, the index fell by 553.75 points or 15.23 per cent to touch 3081.35 (3635.10).