Sensex plunges nearly 197 points in early trade

Mumbai, Aug 12 (PTI) The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark
Sensex on Wednesday fell by almost 197 points in opening trade
on selling by foreign funds and retail investors, tracking
weak global markets.

The 30-share index moved down by 196.58 points, or 1.21
per cent to 14,878.01 points in opening trade after stocks of
auto, metals and realty sectors suffered the most.

Similarly, the Nifty index on the wide-based National
Stock Exchange fell by 62.60 points, or 1.39 per cent at
4,408.75. All the sectoral indices dipped with losses up to
1.68 per cent.

Brokers said selling pressure gathered momentum on the
domestic bourses in tandem with weakness on the US markets and
similar trends in morning trade on other Asian bourses.

In the auto sector, Mahindra and Mahindra was down by
2.13 per cent at Rs 768.25, Maruti Suzuki 0.61 per cent at Rs
1,284 and Tata Motors 1.41 per cent at Rs 422.20.

Among metal stocks, Sterlite Industries, non-ferrous
metals producer, traded 2.52 per cent lower at Rs 619,
Hindalco lost 1.56 per cent at Rs 103.80 and Tata Steel
down 1.67 per cent at Rs 455.40.

Other losers were Reliance Industries down by 0.65 per
cent to Rs 1,986.45, Infosys Technologies by 1.42 per cent to
Rs 2,052 and Rcom by 2.03 per cent at Rs 248.55.

The US markets ended almost 1.25 per cent down on
Tuesday, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index plunged 2.4 per
cent and Japan's Nikkei shed 1.2 per cent in the morning trade
on Wednesday. PTI SUN