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Pivotals decline, Nifty down 12 points; 965.50

Pivotals declined further on the National Stock Exchange today due to speculative selling pressure by bull operators in view of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's tough stand on the Cauvery water dispute.

The AIADMK staged a walkout in Parliament when government sought adjourment in the case of Cauvery water issue. The news reports have affected market sentiments on the market.

Foreign and domestic institutions' continued buying support failed to improve market sentiments and shares prices declined moderately on the last day of weekly trading cycle on the NSE.

Mirroring the subdued trend, the NSE-50 Index or Nifty slid by 11.80 points to 965.50 points against 977.30 points of the previous day.

The Dollar NSE-50 Index or Defty also moved down by eight points to 788.75 from 796.75 points.

The Midcap Index fell down by 11.35 points to 1449.95 points as compared to 1461.30 points the last working day.

The total turnover, involving 55.03 million shares in 198,681 trades was Rs 14.62 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 1.4 million.

About 338 securities advanced, 658 declined and 91 remained unchanged. 31 securities hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors today purchased shares for Rs 264.7 million against their lower sales for Rs 245.26 million, which indicates the inflow of foreign funds worth Rs 19.44 million in the market.

Tobacco giant ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 3.66 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 3.26 billion), SBI(Rs 859.5 million), Reliance (Rs 815.9 million, Pentafour Software (Rs 687.2 million), Tata Tea (Rs 371.2 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 338.8 million), ACC (Rs 307.6 million), BHEL (Rs 288.6 million), L&T (Rs 260.4 million), Telco (Rs 249.4 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 229.3 million) and Bajaj Auto (Rs 193.7 million).

The other actively traded counters were: BFL Software (Rs 188 million), Castrol (Rs 166.8 million), Silverline (Rs 171.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 128.6 million), Tisco (Rs 127.1 million), HCL-HP (Rs 126.9 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 126.3 million), BPL (Rs 122.5 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 110.6 million), HDFC (Rs 98.7 million), MTNL (Rs 97.5 million), and NIIT (Rs 82.6 million).

MRPL topped the gainers' list with 3.13 per cent increase to Rs 16.50, followed by Thermax (3 per cent to Rs 183.60), Ashok Leyland (1.61 per cent to Rs 34.65), Asian Paints (1.28 per cent to Rs 285) and BHEL (0.94 per cent to Rs 246.90).

Telco suffered the highest loss of 7.32 per cent to Rs 143.75, followed by IPCL (5.45 per cent to Rs 52.05), East India Hotels (4.18 per cent to Rs 213.25), TVS Suzuki (4.10 per cent to Rs 438.60) and Andhra Valley (3.40 per cent to Rs 78.25).

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trading worth Rs 4.37 billion. The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 850 million at a weighted yield of 11.48 per cent. The 11.75 per cent government stock maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 450 million at a weighted yield of 11.48 per cent. The 14-day treasury bill maturing on July 25, 1998 was traded for Rs 115 million at a yield of 6 per cent. The total debenture traded value today was Rs 714,000.

UNI