Sensex ends 344 pts down; mkts see highest turnover ever

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The Sensex witnessed huge selling pressure in the second half of trade on the back of sell-off across all the sectors and unwinding of positions in leading sectors. It closed below the psychological 17,000 mark while the Nifty closed just above the 5,000 level. The experts were expecting the Nifty closing around 5,100 level on the expiry day.

The markets and F&O segment, both recorded highest ever turnover on the last day of November series. The markets reported total turnover of Rs 1,59,224.71 crore. This included Rs 17,605.67 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 1,37,130.38 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 4,488.66 crore from the BSE cash segment.

Reliance Industries went ex-bonus today. The stock closed 3% lower. It has fixed November 27, 2009 as the record date.

Fall in global markets also weighed on the Indian equities; European markets were down 2% each and the US index futures fell over 1%, at the time of writing this report. Shares of banking and mining companies saw huge sell-off in these markets.

Asian markets also closed lower, which slipped further in the last couple of hours. China's Shanghai bleed the most, down 3.6% on concern that banks will have to raise more capital to meet swelling loan demand which dragged financial companies lower.

According to Reuters, investors fled the market amid mounting worries that the government may take steps to clamp down on surging asset prices. "Concerns over a clampdown on asset prices, including stocks and property, have altered the trend of uninterrupted rises seen from early September until early this week, which was spurred by the strong economic recovery and corporate earnings," said a senior trader at a major Chinese brokerage.

Among the other Asian markets, Hang Seng was down 1.8% and Jakarta down 2.76%. Straits Times fell 1.1%. Nikkei and Kospi declined 0.60-0.77%. Taiwan Weighted was down 0.22%.

Index	Closing Value	* Chg (%)	**Chg (%)
METAL	15,924.49	-1.83	14.53
AUTO	6,972.99	-1.54	11.59
BANKEX	10,061.72	-2.64	8.3
IT	4,764.38	-1.97	7.13
PHARMA	4,722.56	-0.34	6.93
SMALLCAP	7,530.49	-0.98	5.86
MIDCAP	6,399.03	-1.45	5.83
OIL&GAS	10,229.80	-2.3	5.4
NIFTY	5005.55	-2.01	5.37
SENSEX	16,854.93	-2	5
CAP GOODS	13,361.00	-1.05	3.31
TECk	3,000.79	-1.49	3.07
FMCG	2,885.92	-1.45	2.12
POWER	2,970.27	-1.29	0.39
REALTY	3,634.22	-2.11	-4.87
* - Today's Change
** - November series change

Banking, technology, metal and select FMCG stocks saw unwinding of positions. Banking was the major loser today, the BSE Bankex fell 2.64%. ICICI Bank tumbled 3.74%. Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, PNB and Axis Bank were down 1.7-3%. SBI was down 3.01%, as the bank said it is further scaling down its credit growth forecast below the 20% mark. And it is not just SBI - other large PSU banks have also said that the Reserve Bank of India's scaled down target of 18% credit growth this fiscal may be tough to achieve.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 16,854.93, down 344.02 points or 2% and the 50-share NSE Nifty was down 102.60 points or 2.01%, to settle at 5005.55.

Tata Steel reported consolidated net loss of Rs 2,707 crore versus loss of Rs 2,208 crore, jump of 22.5% on quarter-on-quarter basis. The stock was down 3.34%. Among the other metal stocks, NALCO, Jindal Steel, JSW Steel, Hindalco, Sterlite Industries, Sesa Goa and SAIL were down 1-4%.

Air India shelved plans for a domestic low cost carrier, government sources told CNBC-TV18. This low cost carrier was a part of Air India's turnaround plan. This news helped the private companies' shares in trade today. SpiceJet was up 5% and Jet Airways up 5.77% on huge volumes. Kingfisher was up just 0.4%.

Precious metal, Gold made an all-time high of USD 1195.39 an ounce today on weak dollar but it slipped after that. It was trading at USD 1183.06/oz, down 0.33% in the international markets. The dollar Index made fresh 15-month lows today, declined to 74.17. The US dollar has hit 14-year low of Japan's Yen, slipped below 87. It was at 1 1/2-year low versus Swiff Franc and 15-month low versus Euro.

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