Sensex ends down 458 points

**admin** · 02-21-2008 09:22 AM

Renewed fears of global economic slowdown and domestic inflation due to rising crude prices put a spanner in the market’s northward journey. On Wednesday, after opening marginally lower, the BSE sensex slid all through the session and ended 458 points off at 17,618. Most sectors, except software stocks, ended in the red. The IT pack rallied as the rupee weakened against the US dollar. Most of the Asian markets showed a weak trend and the Indian market also followed the same route. As crude oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel mark again, there were renewed fears of problems in the US subprime loan market. There were news that KKR Financial Holdings, the publicly listed arm of private equity major Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, had delayed repayment of debt backed by mortgage securities. Institutional dealers said, in case the US slips into a recession, foreign funds would further dry up. Wednesday’s provisional trading figures showed that FIIs had net sold shares worth Rs 266 crore. So far this year, FIIs have net sold shares worth about $3 billion, compared to a total inflow of about $17 billion during the whole of last year. With FIIs inflows drying up, turnover in the market has also gone down substantially. Compared to average daily turnovers of over Rs 1 lakh crore on the BSE and NSE combined, current figures are around Rs 60,000 crore. On Wednesday, the combined turnover on the two bourses was about Rs 62,000 crore. At the close of the session, investors were poorer by Rs 1.3 lakh crore with BSE’s market capitalization now at Rs 58.2 lakh crore. Among the sensex stocks, Tata Steel ended nearly 5% off at Rs 773 while Maruti closed 4.8% off at Rs 769 and BHEL ended 4.5% off at Rs 2,124. Among the gainers were TCS, that announced a multi-year deal with global auto major Chrysler. TCS ended 1% higher at Rs 884. Other gainers included Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Satyam and Ambuja Cement. Of the 30 sensex stocks, 25 ended in the red while 5 were winners. In the broader market, laggards outnumbered gainers by a ratio of over 2:1 with 1,932 stocks ending in the red compared to 806 stocks that closed higher.