Sensex dips below 27000-mark; Nifty cracks 8,200-level

Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex slumped below the 27,000-mark and the NSE Nifty broke the 8,200-level in late morning trade on sustained selling across the board. The market has been witnessing sluggish sentiment for the past three sessions, reacting to subdued global trend on falling crude prices and weak Chinese manufacturing data.

Continued FII outflows along with jump in country's trade deficit to one-and-half year high due to six-fold rise in gold imports renewed domestic economic concerns. The 30-share BSE Sensex resumed lower at 27,181.18 and slid to 26,946.39, down by 373.17 points, or 1.37 per cent, on persistent selling.

The NSE 50-share Nifty dropped below the 8,200-mark by falling 106.65 points, or 1.30 per cent, to 8,112.95. Barring IT and Teck which saw value buying, rest other sectors led by metal, realty, banking, consumer durables, FMCG, healthCare, oil & gas and auto along with MidCap and SmallCap shares witnessed hectic profit-booking. Foreign Portfolio Investors sold shares worth a net Rs 455.72 crore on December 15 as per provisional data.

Major losers were Hindalco (6.49 per cent), SSLT (4.90 per cent), ICICI Bank (3.78 per cent), Dr Reddy (3.49 per cent), ONGC (2.95 per cent) and M&M (2.66 per cent). While the notable gainers are TCS (2.67 per cent), Infy (1.31 pct) and Wipro (0.52 per cent).

Asian stocks trading lower as oil's slump and weaker- than-estimated Chinese manufacturing stoked concern that the global economy may falter. Key indices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan were down by 0.43 per cent to 1.9 per cent. Key indices in China and Taiwan rose 0.26 per cent to 0.74 per cent.