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Asian slide continues to dip BSE

The shadow of the sliding Asian markets continued to loom large on the Bombay Stock Exchange, forcing the sensex down by 68 points.

Being the last day of the current settlement, most of the operators were busy squaring up. "Players were worried about what has been happening around the world and have postponed their long-term commitments," a dealer said, "Some even turned sellers at strong counters."

Another dealer said it was the financial institutional investors's delay in allocating funds to their managers in India that was reason for the fall.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the BSE sensitive index opened at 3,579.24, fell sharply to touch the low of 3,514.99 and finally settled at 3,530.20 points showing a net lose of 67.96 points over the previous close of 3,598 points.

The BSE sensex has lost over 150 points in the past couple of sessions.

Reports say the Asian stock market ended the week lower across the board on Friday, with the key index in Manila tumbling over eight per cent to its lowest level in almost five years.

The Phillipine Stock Exchange index of 30 selected stocks closed 137.85 points, or 8.3 per cent down to 1518.00, its lowest since April 3, 1993.

Back home, the broadbased BSE-100 closed lower by 33.97 points to 1,533.49 points over the previous close of 1,567.46.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices declined by 8.27 and 3.69 points to 343.59 and 144.06 over the previous close of 351.86 and 147.75 points respectively.

The total turnover on the BSE surpassed the 11 billion-mark, netting 11.19 billion.

ITC topped the list of turnover by registering the highest business volume at Rs 2.93 billion, followed by Tata Tea (Rs 1.90 billion), State Bank (Rs 1.49 billion), Castrol Ind (Rs 836.9 million) and Reliance (Rs 687.6 million).

Hectic trading was witnessed at counters led by Telco (Rs 246 million), Hind Lever (Rs 234.7 million), L&T (Rs 229.9 million), Tisco (Rs 191.3 million), ACC (Rs 158.5 million), BPL Ltd (Rs 147.1million), MTNL (Rs 124.4 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 120.7 million), ICICI Ltd (Rs 94.5 million) and IPCL (Rs 91.8 million).

Good transactions were reported in the B1 counters like Corporation, Global Trust, Infosys Tech, Nat Alum Co, Zee Telefilm, NIIT, Reliance Pet, Raasi Cement, HDFC Bank, Ingersoll, LML Ltd, Satyam Comp, Kin Honda, Bata India and Vashist Det.

UNI