Over 300 stocks hit lower circuit; 137 hit record lows

Hundreds of the companies, mostly frommid-cap and small-cap segments, on Friday saw their share prices hitting theall-time lows or lowest permissible limit for the day amid concerns over loansraised by their promoters with shares or convertible bonds as collaterals.

As a fall in the rupee value to below Rs 51-level versus theUS dollar made the foreign borrowings costlier, the share prices were batteredof the companies having heavy promoter pledges and significant exposure toloans through foreign currency convertible bonds, marketmen said.

As per the stock exchange data, share prices of as many as137 companies hit their all-time low levels on Friday, while a total of 343stocks hit their lower circuit or fell to the maximum permissible limit for theday on the BSE.

The companies whose shares hit all-time lows today includedstate-run telecom major MTNL (down 4.54 per cent to Rs 25.20), as also privatesector players like Punj Lloyd (down 5.96 per cent to Rs 45.75) and GMRInfrastructure (down 3.87 per cent to Rs 19.85).

It was mostly mid-cap and small-cap stocks, which were seenbearing the maximum brunt. The stocks having hit record lows included NDTV,Bartronics, Network18 Media, Indiabulls Real Estate, Indiabulls Power and MOILamong others.

Commenting on the trend, Unicon Financial Solutions CEO GajendraNagpal said "Markets are in a bear grip. Sentiments are very low. Barringa few stocks, a considerable number of stocks are ruling at a price which islower than the price which used to be there in 2008."

The companies whose shares hit the lower circuit limitsincluded Parsvnath Developers, Pipavav Defence, MVL, SKS Microfinance, Edservand Kwality Dairy among others.

Many of these companies have either significant exposure toforeign currency convertible bonds, or their promoters have heavy pledged theirshares.

Some newly listed entities, such as Taksheel, Sujana Towers,MB Switch and Birla Pacific Medspa also hit the lower circuits amid a heavybattering of their stocks.

"Domestic scenario is in a very bad shape, secondquarter corporate earnings were muted, and there is lack of policy initiativesby the government," Nagpal said, while adding that FIIs were also notinfusing funds because of the extreme rupee volatility.

The benchmark index, the Sensex, also closed in the red witha decline of over 90 points, marking its seventh straight session of a losingstreak. However, it managed to recover from the intra-day lows, when it hadlost over 200 points.

The Sensex has lost about 1,200 points in the last sevensessions.