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Global turmoil spreads to BSE; Sensex crashes over 66 points, 2908.10 points

The worldwide fall of markets cast its shadow on the Bombay Stock Exchange today as equities suffered further setback on the last day of settlement following hectic selling spree by the foreign institutional investors.

The stocks markets, including Asian and American, slid further on political instability and economic turmoil in Russia. This had adverse impact on the India capital markets, leading brokers said and added that oversubscription of Resurgent India Bonds, an SBI scheme for non-residents Indians issue, which witnessed an inflow of double the amount than expected, also failed to bring the bullish trend in the capital markets.

Resuming on a weak note, the BSE Sensitive Index (30 scrips) opened lower at 2937.12 points, due to good support from local institutions it recovered to 2962.38 but could not sustain intra-day gains and crashed below 2900 mark, before closing at 2908.10 points, suffering a net loss of 66.73 points as against the Thusday's close of 2974.83 points.

The broadbased BSE National Index dropped below psychological barrier of 1300 mark and finished at 1299.12 point suffering a loss of 32.09 points over the previous close of 1331.21 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also suffered a setback to 303.26 and 118.69 points losing 07.34 and 02.90 points as compared to last trading day's close of 310.60 and 121.59 points respectively.

Major losers were ACC declined by Rs 52.25 to Rs 1045, Reliance Industries came down by Rs 6 to Rs 107, Tisco by Rs 3.65 to Rs 90, SBI by Rs 4.9 to Rs 181 and Telco by Rs 7 to Rs 127. While gainer was Bajaj Auto by Rs 3.5 to Rs 657.

In the overseas market, the 225-issue Nikkei stock average dropped below 14,000 points level for the first time in 12 years, traders said and added that the world markets went into free fall as reports circulated that Russian President Boris Yeltsin may soon resign because of his nation's financial crisis.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading was Rs 11.44 billion involving 46.8 million shares in 124,270 traded.

The ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 3.06 billion followed by Satyam Computer Rs 1.90 billion, Reliance Industries Rs 703.6 million, Pentafour Software Rs 570 million, Zee Telefilm Rs 543.5 million, SBI Rs 541.6 million, Tata Tea Rs 342.8 million, L&T Rs 233.7 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 229.4 million, Infosys Tech Rs 185.6 million, MTNL Rs 173.2 million, Telco Rs 156.4 million, Castrol Industries Rs 144.6 million, ACC Rs 130.9 million and BHEL Rs 119.8 million in specified counters.

Good transactions were observed at Rolta (Rs 56.9 million), Silverline (Rs 51.9 million), SFL Software (Rs 33.1 million), Bausch & Lomb (Rs 32.8 million), HCL Infosys (Rs 31.6 million), Aptech (Rs 13.8 million), R S Software (Rs 13.6 million), Amara Raja Batteries (Rs 13.1 million), CMC (Rs 11.3 million), Software Solution (Rs 11 million), Tata Infotec (Rs 11 million) and DSQ Software (Rs 8.7 million) at B1 counters.

UNI