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Sensex drops by 35.69 points

Reflecting the trend, the BSE Sensex opened at 3359.24, touched the day's high of 3394.93, fell sharply to touch the day's low of 3312.01 and finally settled down at 3319.19 at the fag end of the session, showing a net loss of 35.69 points over the previous close of 3354.88 points.

Leading brokers said that the FIIs stayed away from active buying in view of ongoing debate between United States and Russia over the Iraq issue.

The market could not sustain on its higher level due to selling pressure from speculators coupled with lack of follow-up support from institutional investors, BSE brokers said.

The BSE-100 index closed lower by 6.69 points to 1435.16 points as against the previous close of 1441.85 points. Similarly, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices declined by 3.30 and 0.78 points to 319.94 and 137.85 points as against the previous close of 323.24 and 138.63 points respectively.

The total turnover crossed the Rs 10 billion mark and stood at Rs 10 billion. Tobacco giant ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 2.9 billion, followed by Castrol Rs 1.1 billion, Tata Tea Rs 1 billion, State Bank Rs 1 billion and TELCO Rs 591.7 million.

Hectic activity was observed at the other counters like Reliance Rs 577.5 million, Hind Lever Rs 513.2 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 270.5 million, BHEL Rs 209.1 million, MTNL Rs 207.8 million, L and T Rs 151.6 million, ACC Rs 108.5 million, TISCO Rs 96.1 million, ICICI Rs 85.2 million and Bharat Petro Rs 64.7 million.

Good transactions were also reported in B1 group at the counters namely Corporation, TVS Suzuki, LML ICICI Ba Cor, NIIT, Rel Pet, HDFC Bank, Aptech, Mad Cem, Dig Equip, Zee Telefilm, Ingersoll, Hitech Drill and Vashist Det.

ACC cost less by Rs 19.75 to Rs 1290, Colgate dropped by Re 1 to Rs 236.50, Glaxo declined by Rs 18 to Rs 365, Guj Amb Cem fell by Rs 13.25 to Rs 216.50 while MTNL drifted lower by Rs 6.25 to Rs 227.50.

Among the gainers, Castrol increased by Rs 3.75 to Rs 672.50, Hind Lever gained smartly by Rs 29.25 to Rs 1393.25, Ponds India up by Rs 27.50 to Rs 920.50, and TELCO firmed by Re 0.25 to Rs 224.

UNI