Sensex dips below 16K

It was a terrible Tuesday for investors as the stock market benchmark Sensex dipped below 16,000 on May 25.

The markets were tormented by lingering Eurozone debt worries and rising tensions in Korea.

With global markets hitting their lowest levels since September last year, the domestic markets had literally had no place to hide.

The Sensex ended at 16,022, weaker by 447 ponts or 2.7% and the Nifty ended at 4,806, lower by 137 points or 2.7%.

The Sensex had dipped below the psychological 16000 mark at 3 pm on Tuesday (15,960) and the Nifty had broken the 4,800 level in the afternoon session.

The midcap index shed 3% at 6489 and the smallcap index lost 3.4% at 8176. All the sectoral indices on the BSE ended in the red, with metal, banking and oil stocks being hammered the most.

The global markets have been grappling with concerns regarding the European debt crisis for some time now.

The central bank's takeover of regional savings bank Cajasur over the weekend reinforced investor anxieties and the International Monetary Fund's appeal to the Spanish government on Monday to implement 'far-reaching reforms' compounded fears that the economic woes of the heavily-indebted eurozone country might be worsening.

As if this was not enough, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's statement that the country may have to go to war in case of an attack by the South muddied the troubled waters further.

Bourses across Asia lost around 3% each, European markets have also opened lower by a similar gap and the Dow futures have shed nearly 3% in pre-market opening trades, suggesting a weak start to Wall Street.

Reliance Communications retraced almost all the gains registered on Monday to emerge as the top loser among the Sensex-50 pack.

The ADAG stock lost 6.3% at Rs 138. The BSE metal index shed around 5% to end at seven-month lows on concerns surrounding the global economic recovery.

Hindalco, SAIL and Sesa Goa lost more than 5% each, while Tata Steel and Sterlite declined around 4% each.

Banking stocks also came under the hammer. SBI weakened by 4% at Rs 2154, while ICICI Bank lost 2.7% at Rs 809 and HDFC Bank shed 1.1% at Rs 1803. Ditto with the energy space.

RIL gave up its previous day's gains and ended below the 1000 mark at Rs 186, weaker by 3.6%.

RNRL, which has soared by around 20% in the previous session, corrected by 5% at Rs 51 and Essar Oil lost 5.1% at Rs 116.

Cipla ended flat, with a positive bias, at Rs 313.

The market breadth was negative. Out of 2876 stocks trade don the BSE, there were 484 advancing stocks as against 2304 declines.

Tata Steel topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 157.83 crore. This was followed by RIL (Rs 124.12 crore), SBI (Rs 117.67 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 77.21 crore) and L&T (Rs 64.57 crore).

Tata Steel led the volume charts with trades of 3.324 million. It was followed by Hindalco (2.90 million), Relianmc Communications (2.51 million), Jaiprakash Associates (2.11 million) and DLF (1.64 million).