Call it a Black Wednesday or whatever. The market declined sharply in late trade on Wednesday mirroring weak trend in global stock markets to end with a loss of 678 points, considered the third biggest single-day loss in absolute terms in BSE history.

The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 83 points at 19,198 and thereafter slipping a bit more while trying to recover but could only manage to touch a high of 19,219. Relentless selling, thereafter, saw the index slip deeper into red as the day progressed and BSE’s benchmark index tumbled to a low of 18,515 - down 766 points from previous close. It finally ended with a loss of 678.18 points at 18,602.62 points, which works out to a decline of 3.52 per cent.

Major losers

Bleeding was not specific to Sensex alone, as the broader CNX S&P Nifty at the Natioanl Stock Exchange (NSE) was down 219.85 points to close at 5561.05, showing a plunge of 3.8 per cent from previous close. The market breadth was very negative, as out of 2,854 stocks traded, 2,201 declined, 629 advanced and 24 were unchanged during the trading hours of the day. NTPC, Bharat Heavy Electricals, ITC, and Reliance Energy were major losers from Sensex.

However, BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 7,301 crore during the day as compared to Tuesday’s Rs 8, 623.31 crore. All the sectoral indices on BSE were in red. Capital goods, banking, power, metal stocks were major losers. Market breadth was weak. Profit taking was witnessed across board as mid-cap and small-cap counters faltered.

Market sentiment

Data showing heavy FII sales on Tuesday weighed on the market sentiment, which was also impacted by media reports that the government is considering raising the securities transaction tax (STT), with one of the options being increasing the ceiling to 0.5 per cent.

Persistent worries about the impact of sub-prime mortgage defaults pulled stocks across Asia and Europe. FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 4,201.14 crore in the futures & options segment on Tuesday.

According to NSE data, FIIs were net sellers of index futures to the tune of Rs 2,897.67 crore and bought index options worth Rs 35.34 crore. They were net sellers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 1,334.46 cr.