Sensex ends winning streak as nation goes to polls

Snapping an eight-day long rally, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Thursday tumbled by nearly three per cent on profit-booking even as the country went to the first phase of General Elections.

With blue-chip stocks like the Tata Motors, the Reliance Infra and the Ranbaxy Laboratories recording heavy losses, the bellwether lost 337.33 points to end the day at 10,947.40. The decline comes after more than 1,700-point gain in the past eight trading sessions.

The key-index dipped below the key 11,000-point level with 24 stocks of the 30 share Sensex closing lower. The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty also
dropped by 114.65 points at 3,369.50.

Meanwhile, polling was held today for 124 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country amid incidents of violence in some parts. The major losers were Reliance Industries down 4.88 per cent, Tata Motors 13.50 per cent, Ranbaxy 6.81 per cent, Tata Steel 8.25, Reliance Infra by 9.36 per cent, Reliance Com by 5.48 per cent, Infosys by 2.15 per cent and ICICI Bank by 3.90 per cent.

All the eight pivotal shares carry nearly 33 per cent weightage on the Sensex. Barring fast moving consumer goods, all the sectoral indices closed in negative as the profit selling spread over a wide-front. 

The realty and metal stocks, which had been in lime-light during the eight-day rally, suffered the most as investors and speculators indulged in profit booking. The realty sector tumbled by 9.16 per cent to 2,100.74 followed by metal index by 6.97 per cent to 6,905.12. Capital goods sector index fell by 4.95 per cent to 7,645.51, oil and gas index by 4.50 per cent to 7,901.37, power index by 4.38 per cent to 2,071.40 and consumer durable index by 4.07 per cent to 1,846.77.

The PSU index fell by 3.24 per cent to 5,891.05, bank index by 3.11 per cent to 5,369.17, tech index by 2.97 per cent to 1,984.95, auto index by 2.63 per cent to 3,422.95, information technology by 2.16 per cent to 2,391.77 and healthcare index by 1.76 per cent to 3,043.93. With the selling pressure spreading on the wide-front,
smallcap index dropped by 4.72 per cent to 3,928.99 and midcap index by 4.53 per cent to 3,438.73.

Bucking the weakening trend, FMCG index rose by 1.92 per cent to 2,101.01 as half of the 12 index participants gained while others recorded moderate to notable losses.