The Hindu : Business : Sensex slips to six-week low

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Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009
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Sensex slips to six-week low

Heavy selling in capital goods, auto, metals and realty stocks

MUMBAI: Heavy profit-booking by foreign funds continued to dog Dalal Street for the second week in a row with the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index Sensex touching a six-week low by dropping 119 points on Monday, despite mixed Asian trends and firm Western cues.

The BSE 30-share bellwether index at the onset touched a high of 16750.99 but soon turned negative and remained for major part of the day in the negative terrain and settled at 16601.20, a level not seen since November 10, registering a net fall of 118.63 points over its previous close. The market was pulled down by heavy selling in capital goods, auto, metals and realty sectors on profit-booking by foreign funds which are shoring up their funds’ net asset value before going for the long Christmas holidays.

The capital goods index was the worst hit with a 1.63 per cent loss, followed by metals (1.59 per cent) pulled down by Hindalco, realty index (1.20 per cent) and consumer goods (0.25 per cent).

The broader 50-share NSE Nifty dipped by 35.10 points to a three-week low of 4952.60.

Contrary to the market sentiment, consumer durable stocks attracted good retail interest and notched up handsome gains.

In Asia, indices from Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea closed in the negative terrain while China, Japan and Taiwan closed with marginal gains. Markets even shrugged off firm European opening.

Rupee sheds 13 paise

In range-bound trading on Monday, the rupee lost 13 paise against the dollar and closed at 46.85/86 on fresh outflows.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee moved in a range of 46.76 and 46.86 on alternate bouts of buying and selling and finally ended at 46.86 against 46.73 last Friday. — PTI

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