Sensex ends 113 points down

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex ended the session today down by 112.83 points or 0.66 per cent at 16,877.35.
Similarly, the broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty was down 35 points or 0.68 per cent at 5,083.50.
Among the sectoral indices, IT was down 3.39 per cent, healthcare 2.75 per cent, teck 2.62 per cent and metal 2.38 per cent. FMCG was up 1.56 per cent and auto 0.68 per cent. Of the total 2,956 stocks traded, 835 advanced, 2.036 declined and 85 remained unchanged.
The stock market turned highly volatile with the benchmark index plunging back into the red after oscillating more than 1,600 points between negative and positive territories.
After plunging deep into red with an early morning loss of 558 points, the stock market staged a smart recovery and the Sensex wiped off all its morning losses by early afternoon. However, the recovery was short-lived and the index again moved back into the red zone.
The index had opened 472 points down this morning and the losses widened to 558 points within minutes. However, by the early afternoon, the index had recovered more than 700 points from its early morning lows.
Experts said that the brief recovery was mostly due to positive opening in the European markets, which later pared their gains with the trend reflecting on the Indian bourses also.
Within minutes of opening this morning, the Sensex had dipped to as low as 16,432 points — its lowest since June 1, 2010, but it wiped off all its losses and had moved into the positive territory soon after mid-day — the time when the European markets open.
The overnight meltdown in the US markets and the continuing downtrend in Asia this morning had added to the woes of Indian bourses.
The global markets have been in a turmoil for the past two days, after the creditworthiness of the US was downgraded by Standard and Poor’s amid the American economy’s mounting debt worries.
The debt problems in Europe have already been hammering the stocks across the world for about a week now.