The bull rally on the bourses suddenly reversed its course on Friday as investors booked profit at higher levels.
The benchmark Sensex dipped by 395.03 points and closed at 18,419.04, down by 2.1 per cent.
The S&P CNX Nifty was down by 1.75 per cent and closed at 5,428.25.
Rupee dips
Tracking the equity market, the rupee also fell about five paise against the US dollar. The home currency opened at 39.29/31 and then quickly rallied to 39.45 and closed at 39.36/37.
In the equity market, domestic institutions were net sellers to the tune of Rs 883.68 crore, while FIIs were net buyers.
The net gainers include Reliance Energy, ONGC, M&M and Hindalco. Top losers include SBI, ICICI Bank, L&T and Tata Motors.
Mr Harendra Kumar, Head-Research, ICICI Direct, said, a correction was expected as the markets could not sustain the kind of rally seen in the past few days.
A dealer said Indian markets took cues from the weak global markets. The Dow fell by 0.45 per cent, Hang Seng by 1.01 per cent and Nasdaq by 1.40 per cent.
Almost all the major indices on local bourses were in red, with BSE-Realty dipping the most by 3.29 per cent, BSE-CG down by 2.77 per cent, whereas Bankex fell 2.72 per cent.
“Although the interest rate cut will benefit the Realty sector, today’s dip has only one plausible reason being that it has gone through a routine correction,” said Mr Manish Sonthalia, Equity Strategy, Motilal Oswal.
Biggest losers on the Sensex were State Bank of India (down 4.23%), Larsen & Toubro (3.61%), Tata Motors (3.41%), ICICI Bank (3.37%), BHEL (3.30%), Cipla (3.30) and Reliance Communications (3.14%).
Biggest gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Energy (up 3.76%), ONGC (1.74%), Hindalco (1.51%), M&M (1.37%) and Tata Steel (0.52%). The BSE saw 1,688 declines and 1,054 advances while NSE saw 810 losers and 368 gainers.
