Punjab, Oct. 15 -- The Sensex fell 252 points on Wednesday to 72,781.89, with the Nifty down 99.25 to 22,622.70 - a mild giveback after Tuesday's 1.6 per cent surge. Crude climbing towards 107 dollars did the damage, and IT was the only sector that mattered.
What held and what did not
Nifty IT extended its recovery after gaining 5.2 per cent on Tuesday, when HCL Technologies reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings. Pharma and healthcare went the other way, with the pharma index down about 1 per cent.
The detail that complicates the headline is breadth: 2,351 shares advanced against 1,694 that declined, with 129 unchanged. A falling index with positive breadth means the weight was in a handful of large stocks, not in the market g...