COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Equities decline on weak sentiment; Nifty down 21 points, 899.35

The market sentiment weakened further as equity prices declined on sustained selling pressure from financial institutions on the National Stock Exchange.

The NSE-50 Index or Nifty opened at 919.40 points touched day's high of 929.45 points, low of 895.85 points and closed at 899.35 points, suffering a loss of 20.75 points as against the previous close of 920.10 points.

The Dollar NSE-50 Index or Defty finished at 732.35 points declining 17.35 points over the last trading day's close of 749.70 points.

The Nifty Junior Index came down to 1396.70 points as compared to previous close of 1404.60 points, decreasing by 7.90 points. The total turnover on the exchange was Rs 11.24 billion involving 43.28 million shares in 164,617 trades. The debentures traded value was Rs 667,000.

About 30 securities hit their price bands today. 238 scrips advanced, 673 declined and 87 scrips remained unchanged in the exchange.

Among the top gainers were BPCL, which rose to Rs 326 from Rs 315, Asian Paints hardened to Rs 283.35 from Rs 275.05, Glaxo to Rs 364.40 from Rs 359.70, Ranbaxy to Rs 581.85 from Rs 74.95, Bajaj Auto to Rs 640.65 from Rs 633.40.

Losers were Mahindra & Mahindra which came down to Rs 156.95 from Rs 170.60, Grasim to Rs 226.20 from Rs 245.70, Indian Rayon to Rs 138.25 from Rs 150.15, Ashok Leyland Rs 27.80 from Rs 30.10, BHEL Rs 205.00 from Rs 220.65.

Hectic trading was witnessed at ITC (Rs 2.68 billion), Satyam Computers (Rs 2.41 billion), SBI (Rs 876.7 billion), Reliance (Rs 520.2 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 486.9 million), Castrol (Rs 396 million), ACC (Rs 343.9 million), L&T (Rs 336.2 million), Tata Tea (Rs 256.8 million), BFL Software (Rs 214.5 million), Pentafour Software (Rs 206.7 million), Tisco (Rs 202.5 million), Telco (Rs 195.5 million), Infosys Technology (Rs 127.3 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 126.7 million), BSES (Rs 108.5 million), MTNL (Rs 105.2 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 103.1 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 100.3 million), Silverline Industries (Rs 94.7 million), BHEL (Rs 90.1 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 89.6 million), LML (Rs 65.4 million), Bank of Baroda (Rs 49.7 million) and HCL-HP (Rs 47.6 million).

UNI