It was a dramatic and extremely important day for the markets as they hit the lower circuit stopped trading for an hour but showed remarkable recovery and ended off the lows. But the loss was fairly reasonable as compared to turmoil it saw in the opening trade. With more clarification in the statements by Sebi on Paticipatory Notes led to the recovery.

Sensex ended down over 300 points, recoverig 1400 points from the day's low.

IT stocks were the star performers and following the suit were power and capital goods that led the recovery.

Recovery was led by TCS, Reliance, Bharti Airtel, Hindalco, SAIL, Siemens, ABB, Satyam, Relaince and Infosys. Power stocks like Power Grid, PTC, Neyveli Lignite ended in green.

Top losers on the indices are ICICI Bank, HDFC,  ACC, SBI, Reliance Energy.

Sensex was down 336.04 points or 1.76% at 18715.82, and the Nifty down 108.75 points or 1.92% at 5559.30.

About 1099 shares have advanced, 1885 shares declined, and 65 shares are unchanged.

The BSE Midcap Index ended at 7,600.94 down 2.3%.

The BSE Smallcap Index ended at 9,201.58 down 2%.

The BSE Bankex was down 4% at 9,607.61. SBI, IOB, ICICI Bank, Andhra Bank, Karnataka Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Bank of India moved downwards.

The BSE Capital Goods Index was down 2% at 16,824.54. L&T, Suzlon Energy, Areva T&D, BHEL, Triveni Engg closed lower.

The BSE Auto Index closed at 5,476.00 down 2%. Escorts, MRF, Cummins, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto closed lower.

The BSE Metal Index closed at 15,719.80 down 3%. Tata Steel, SAIL, Shree Precoated, Jindal Steel, Mah Seamless, Hindalco, JindalStainless closed lower.

The BSE FMCG Index closed at 2,100.38 down 2%. United Spirits, Bata India, United Brewerie, Colgate, HUL closed lower

BSE Oil and Gas Index closed at 10,961.30 down 0.3%. HPCL, IOC, Essar Oil ended in red.

The BSE IT Index was up 1% at 4,676.49. TCS up 2.5%, HCL Tech up 1.5%, Satyam, Infy up over 1%.

The NSE cash turnover was at Rs 24040.11 crore and the NSE F&O turnover was at Rs 98395.58 crore. The BSE cash turnover was Rs 10282.79 crore. Total market wide turnover was at Rs 132718.48 crore. In the NSE F & O segment turnover, previous high was Rs 1 lakh cr).

F&O Snapshot:

• All time high turnover at
• Nifty futures see hectic activity; see buying at bottoms and profit booking on recovery
• Huge unwinding in stock futures in 1st half of the day
• Momentum stocks gain from day's low in 2nd half
• Power Grid biggest gainer in late trade
• RNRL sees huge recovery; adds massive Open Int in late trade
• Buying in late trade in RIL, RPL and tech stocks
• Nifty futures discount at 3 pts Vs 2 pts on Tuesday; add lakh shares in OI
• Nifty turnover at Rs 31,250 cr
• Nifty 5600, 5700 call seen most active during the day
• Nifty 5500, 5400, 5000 put seen most active during the day
  

Participatory Notes are investments made in the markets using derivative instruments through the FII and their identity is anonymous. The government has tried to place to put a cap on the money routed by PNs in order to mderate the inflows. SEBI said the number of FIIs and/or sub-accounts issuing overseas derivative instruments had more than doubled to 34 from 14 in March 2004. SEBI proposed that FII sub-accounts should stop issuing PNs and should wind up their positions over 18 months.

Sebi has also proposed to assign an incremental rate of 5% for issue of participatory notes for FIIs with less than 40 pct of assets in such notes, while those with over 40 pct of assets in PNs can be issued only against redemptions or cancellations.