Sensex Down 140.96 Pts; Tata Motors Plunges 7.75%

Sensex Down 140.96 Pts; Tata Motors Plunges 7.75%After opening the day positively at 11,358.06 points, Sensex soon fell in to the negative terrain following heavy selling action witnessed across front line stocks.

Consumer durables and FMCG stocks remained up, whilst metal, capital goods, oil & gas and power stocks fell into the pessimistic zone.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index declined 1.64% and 1.45% respectively.
 
Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Metal lost 4.31%, Capital goods fell 3.33%, Oil & Gas and Power was sown by more than 2%.

The only gainer was Consumer durables, which gained 1.06%.

At 12:50 p.m., the 30-share index Sensex lost 140.96 points at 11,143.77 after hitting a high of 11,367.23 and a low of 11,098.24.

In the meantime, the broad based Nifty stood at 3,423.60, down 60.55 points, after touching a high of 3,511.25 and a low of 3,423.40.

There were 2,509 advances on BSE, and 1,388 declines, while 59 stocks remained unaffected.

The prominent gainers included Wipro zooming 3%; Sun Pharma 1.95%; Hindustan Unilever 1.76%, Maruti Suzuki India 1.36%, and Reliance Capital was up by 0.67%.

The key losers were Tata Motors slipping 7.75%; Tata Steel 5.64%; Ranbaxy Laboratories 5.40%, L&T 4.02% and ONGC dropping 3.30%.

India`s benchmark wholesale price index (WPI), inflation fell further to 0.18% for the week ended Apr. 4, 2009 as against 0.26% a week ago.

Inflation stood at 7.71% during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The consistent decline in inflation but rising food prices present a difficult choice before the RBI to cut policy rates or not even as the industry clamours for easing of interest rates.

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