Bears act in concert

Today's major news
Reliance Industries’ Q3 net up 16%; the stock closes 0.06% lower
ITC’ Q3 net sales brew by 18.7%; the stock jumps 2.13%
Allahabad Bank’s Q3 net down by 6.5%; the stock ends the day 1.5% lower
Fortis Healthcare’s Q3 net profit at Rs12.40 crore; the stock rises 1.97%
HCC’ Q3 net down 36%; the stock slides 5.09%
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Post-market summary
Global signals
European indices traded marginally lower in morning trades, as banking stocks slid. At the time of writing this report FTSE 100 was trading marginally 0.09% lower.
All Asian markets closed in red. Nikkei closed 2.56% lower while the SGX Nifty closed 85 points down.
US stock futures opened marginally higher on Friday.
Indian indices
Pessimistic cues from overseas markets saw the Sensex open 73 points lower to breach 17000 level mark and extend its losses and touch the day’s low of 16608. However, better-than-expected Q3 numbers by Reliance Industries helped the Sensex to recoup some of losses and touch the day’s high of 17000. Of the Sensex’ pack, only three scrips closed higher. The index ended the Sensex 191 points lower. Nifty also broke 5000-level though at the end it closed 58 points lower.
Market sentiment
The market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining shares, was fairly negative. Of the total 2,937 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,043 stocks declined, whereas 842 stocks advanced. Fifty-two stocks closed unchanged.
Sectoral & stock screening
Of the 13 sector indices, only BSE FMCG that surged 1.34% and BSE PSU that rose 0.36% closed positive. BSE Realty (down 1.70%), BSE IT (down 1.61%)and BSE Bankex (down 1.56%) were hit the most.
On stocks’ front, Hindustan Copper topped the chart surging by 9.99% followed by Idea Cellular (up 7.64%) and NMDC (up 7.00%). Among losers, Punj Lloyd slid the most by 6.28%, followed by IVRCL Infrastructure that fell by 5.64% and Rei Agro that shed 5.34%.
Viewing volumes
Public sector unit Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers saw the highest trading with over 1.25 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by wind turbine major Suzlon Energy (0.98 crore shares), India’s second biggest realty company Unitech (0.88 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.81 crore shares) and industrial finance company IFCI (0.59 crore shares).