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Sensex drops by 67 points

Pivotals witnessed a retreat on the Bombay Stock Exchange following heavy bull liquidation and selling pressure by foreign institutional investors on the last day of trading settlement, pushing the sensex down by 67 points Friday.

Petrochem and textile major Reliance and market leader ITC came under selling pressure and suffered moderate losses, leading brokers said.

Most of the market players were busy in squaring up.

A fresh setback in the world market, mainly in New York, London and Tokyo, also aided the downtrend in the Indian market.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the BSE sensitive index opened at 2954.31 points, touched the day's high of 2988.73, touched the low of 2919.45 points before closing at 2922.61 points, showing a net loss of 66.99 points against the previous close of 2989.60 points.

According to a report from overseas, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at 8611.41 on Thursday, down 81.87 points from Wednesday's finish.

The rupee's firming up by 30 paise against the US dollar to Rs 42.56/58 did not have any immediate impact on market sentiments. Brokers said the RBI measures, mainly the increase in CRR and hike in the Repo rate, are likely to have an adverse impact on the market.

The broad=based BSE-100 index declined by 27.55 points to 1308.82 points against the previous close of 1336.37 points.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices also eased by 4.95 and 1.42 points to 304.75 and 119.19 points against the previous close of 309.70 and 120.61 points respectively.

The total turnover on the BSE's Bolt network reported during the day was Rs 11 billion.

Tobacco giant ITC topped the list by registering the highest turnvoer of Rs 1.86 billion, followed by Satyam Computer Rs 1.59 billion, Reliance Rs 1.51 billion and Zee Telefilm Rs 806.3 million.

The other actively traded scrips were Pentafour Rs 745.5 million, SBI Rs 646.9 ml, Tata Tea Rs 243.9 ml, BHEL Rs 227.7 ml, Infosys Tech Rs 221 ml, Telco Rs 210.2 ml, Telco Rs 210.2 ml, Dr Reddy Rs 172.9 ml, Castrol Rs 121.6 ml, ACC Rs 121.5 ml, Tisco Rs 114.8 ml and L&T Rs 108.9 ml.

Among the major losers, market leader ITC declined by Rs 102.5 to Rs 605.50, Satyam computer dropped by Rs 15.20 to Rs 492.00, Reliance down by Rs 3.70 to Rs 115.20, Pentafour S slipped by Rs 34 to Rs 623.25, Telco eased by Rs 5 to Rs 140, State Bank of India by Rs 11 to Rs 183, Tata Tea by Rs 12 to Rs 278, Info Tech dropped by Rs 30.50 to Rs 2568, MTNL down by Rs 5.30 to Rs 182.40, ACC declined by Rs 35.50 to Rs 1128 and Dr Reddy moved down by Rs 6.25 to Rs 485.25.

UNI