Sensex touches pre-Lehman collapse level before falling

Mumbai, June 3:Banking and IT stocks pulled down the market today after the BSE Sensex breached the psychologically important 15,000 level for the first time since the Lehman Brothers collapse in September last year, amid high volatility and profit-selling.
Falling after a five-day bull run, the BSE bellwether Sensex ended four points down at 14,870.90, after moving in a wide range of 15,046.43 and 14,733.59 during the day.

The broader 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange was steady at 4,530.70 against its last close of 4,525.25.

Brokers said the market remained bullish, with encouraging infrastructure data for April indicating a likely recovery in Indian economy amid hopes that the new government will focus on the infrastructure sector and push reforms.

Small-cap and mid-cap stocks continued to shine with increased participation from public investors and again outperformed the Sensex. Their respective indices gained 2.11 per cent and 1.50 per cent.

Union Financial CEO G Nagpal said: "People are not in a hurry to book profit. Even if correction emerges in one sector, the other sectors tend to move up. This shows the overall sentiment is positive.

"There might not be much movement in heavyweight stocks, and large caps would move sideways, but mid- and small-caps would steal the show." PTI