The unearthing of a major bribery scandal by CBI on Wednesday involving officials of some top PSU banks and finance firms rattled the bourses with key benchmark indices the BSE Sensex and S&P CNX Nifty plunging to two-and-a-half-month lows during the week.

The market fell for the third straight week after hitting record closing high early this month.

Realty, banking, construction and some firms whose names were reportedly involved in the scandal took a heavy drubbing.

Stock prices were volatile as traders rolled over positions in the derivatives segment from the near-month November 2010 series to December 2010 series.

Weakness in overseas markets and selling by foreign funds, too, dampened the sentiment.

The 30-share Sensex slumped by 448.83 points, or 2.29 per cent, to end the week at 19,136.61, its lowest closing level since 9^th September.

The 50-scrip Nifty also fell by 138.35 points, or 2.35 per cent, to finish the week at 5,751.95, its lowest closing level since 9^th September.

The BSE Mid-Cap index tanked 5.76 per cent and the BSE Small-Cap index slumped 7.05 per cent. From the Sensex pack, 25 stocks fell and the rest five rose during the week.
Realty and construction stocks lost heavily as most of the companies named in the bribe-for-loan scam are related to infrastructure and real estate.

Among the major indices, BSE-Realty fell by 430.76 points, or 13.57 per cent, BSE-Metal 1,046.17 points, or 6.36 per cent, BSE-Capital goods 819.37 points, or 5.24 per cent, BSE-Power 152.17 points, or 5.10 per cent and Bankex lost 421.99 points, or 3.08 per cent.
The Dolex-200 and the dolex-index dropped 57.92 points and 102.93 points respectively.

However, the BSE-IT index shot up by 119.24 points, or 2.02 per cent.

India’s largest realty player by sales DLF lost 6.51 per cent, followed by HDIL (22.49%), Indiabulls Real Estate (21.85%), Orbit Corporation (28.9%), Unitech (11.69%) and DB Realty (44.11%). Jaiprakash Asso declined by 12.24 per cent.

Central Bank of India fell 12.97 per cent, Money Matters Financial Services 44.22 per cent and LIC Housing Finance 27.97 per cent. All three are linked to the scam.

Other losers were Reliance Communications, which fell 12.2 per cent, Reliance Infrastructure 10.06 per cent, Sterlite Industries 8.26 per cent, Bhel 6.94 per cent, Hindalco Industries 6.22 per cent, Jindal Steel & Power 5.42 per cent, Larsen & Toubro 5.36 per cent, State Bank of India 4.44 per cent and ICICI Bank moved down 2.08 per cent.
However, TCS rose 2.69 per cent, Infosys Tech 2.50 per cent, Bharti Airtel 1.43 per cent and Wipro 1.23 per cent.

Total turnover of BSE and NSE rose to Rs 25,166.90 crore and Rs 93,871.04 crore respectively from the last weekend’s Rs 19,924.35 crore and Rs 68,982.64 crore.

A sharp rally was witnessed in gold at the global level due to Korean trouble as well as ongoing Irish debt crisis pushed the investors to find safe-heaven in the yellow metal.

The domestic market saw frantic buying in gold by stockists and speculators leading the metal to scale to an all-time historic high. But the metal lost some of its shine due to profit-taking by investors.

The industrial metal, silver jumped to dizzy highs for successive three days, but soon gobbled up all its gains owing to hectic profit-taking by savvy traders towards the weekend to settle lower.
On the global side, both the precious metal ended on a divergent note, as rising tension in Korean peninsula and factors of economic concerns including widening Irish debt crisis mounted high degree of volatility amidst swinging dollar against major currencies.

In New York, spot gold December delivery gained by USD 10.10 to USD 1,362.40 an ounce from last weekend’s close of USD 1,352.30.
However, silver for December delivery eased to USD 26.70 an ounce over its weekend’s level of USD 27.18.

Turning to domestic market, silver ready (.999 fineness) resumed the week higher at Rs 42,810 and gained further to touch an all-time of Rs 42,955, but later reacted down to end at Rs 42,005 from preceding weekend’s level of Rs 42,445, showing a sharp loss of Rs 440 or 1.04 per cent per kg.
Standard gold (99.5 purity) resumed higher at Rs 20,100 and it also reached to an all-time historic high of Rs 20,505 before settling at Rs 20,345 from last weekend’s level of Rs 20,085, disclosing a smart gain of Rs 260 or 1.29 per cent per ten grams.

Pure gold (99.9 purity) opened higher at Rs 20,195 and shot up to new all-time peak of Rs 20,610 before ending at Rs 20,445 from previous weekend’s level of Rs 20,185, showing a gain of Rs 260 or 1.29 per cent per ten grams.