By IANS,
Mumbai : The Indian equities markets, which opened in the red Thursday, soon slipped sharply with selling pressure all around, especially in IT, banking, realty, capital goods, public sector undertakings, metals and the oil and gas sectors.
Oil touched $122 a barrel in the international market Wednesday, hitting market sentiment here. Equities here were also hit hard by the results of UBS Switzerland, which made a provision for sub-prime losses of $17 billion. The fact that other Asian markets were trading weak did not help either.
The 30-share benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the Sensex, opened with a loss of over one percent at 17,212.61. Barely 20 minutes later, it slid to 17,130.37 points with a loss of 208.94 points or 1.21 percent from Wednesday’s close.
At the same time the S&P Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange was trading at 5,079.40 with a loss of 56.40 points or 1.09 percent from its previous close.
The market breadth was negative. On BSE 1,306 shares declined and 520 advanced while 43 remained unchanged.
While Reliance Communications, ACC, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel were the top gainers in initial trade, Infosys, Satyam, TCS and ICICI Bank were the top losers.