The Hindu : Business : Sensex nosedives 463 points on global meltdown

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Business

Business

Sensex nosedives 463 points on global meltdown

Special Correspondent

Biggest single-day decline since May 17, 2004

— File Photo

FALLING IN LINE: A view of the Bombay Stock Exchange towers. — File Photo

MUMBAI: All the stocks in the BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed in the red on Monday as global meltdown in commodity prices coupled with heavy selling pressure seen in scrips across sectors hit stock prices. The fall was in tandem with the weak emerging markets and Asian markets.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) closed with a sharp fall of 463 points at 11822 and the NSE Nifty was down by 147 points at 3503 and it was the biggest single-day fall for both the indices since May 17, 2004 when the Sensex dropped by 565 points, its second biggest fall ever, following the formation of the UPA Government. The biggest ever fall was on April 28, 1992 when the Sensex lost 570 points following the emergence of Harshad Mehta-led securities scam. The BSE metal index was down by around 11 per cent at 9937.62 and stocks such as Hindalco, Sterlite Industries, Hind Zinc, Tata Steel, SAIL and Jindal Steel closed in the red due to meltdown in global commodity prices. Hindalco witnessed the biggest ever fall in its share price.

On the NSE, the CNX Midcap index was down by four per cent, which was led by a sharp fall in metal stocks. BSE Oil & Gas index was down by 4.3 per cent at 5618.03 and oil and gas majors such as ONGC and Reliance Industries were down around four per cent each. Losers in this sector included GAIL, HPCL, Chennai Petroleum, MRPL and Petronet LNG.

The BSE auto index lost 3.9 per cent at 5464.52 and stocks such as Maruti Udyog, Escorts and Ashok Leyland closed lower. The BSE Bankex was down by 2.7 per cent at 5472.31 and BSE IT index lost 2.35 per cent at 4002.56. The FMCG index was down by four per cent at 2172.97 and ITC and HLL witnessed heavy selling pressure.

Among the capital goods companies, Bharat Electronics, ABB, BEML, Siemens and L&T were the major losers. Among pharma stocks, GSK, Aventis Pharma and Glenmark closed in the negative territory. Almost all emerging markets in Europe and Asia witnessed downward trend. Indonesia was down by six per cent, Philippines by three per cent, Thailans per cent, Russia by 3.5 per cent and Poland by three per cent.

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