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Sensex steady on the last day of settlement; 3211.31

Blue chip prices ruled steady in a squarish trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange as foreign as well as domestic institutions bought considerable amount of shares while bull operators sold similar amount of equities. This kept the Sensex steady despite today being the last day of the settlement.

The FIIs purchased huge amount of State Bank of India, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Dr Reddy's and other index-based shares, leading brokers said and added that Steel Authority of India Limited has announced loss of Rs 3.11 billion in the first quarter of the financial year, which would have adverse effect on the capital market.

Resuming on good buying support the BSE Sensitive Index opened higher at 3231.23 points, rose further to record 3234.54 points, and then Sensex crashed to below 3100 mark and quoted at 3184.10 points as bear opearators were making their position. But, at the fag end it, the index recovered and closed at 3211.31 points as against the previous close of 3212.10 points.

The failure of talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan to work out the modalities for the resumption of the official-level dialogue affected the market sentiments partially. India has maintained that it was willing to resume talks on the basis of a 'broad-based and composite approach' at the earliest, a report said. There may be adverse effect of the Indo-Pak issue on the market, a leading broker said.

The broad-based BSE National Index also remained steady at 1416.67 points over the yesterday's close of 1417.36 points. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices settled down at 324.54 and 126.96 points as compared to last trading day's close of 324.95 and 127.21 points respectively.

Brokers said most of the blue-chip companies have announced good results for the first quarter of current fiscal year, but there were no investors in the market.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system was Rs 9.46 billion involving 37 million shares in 106,694 trades.

ITC recorded highest turnover of Rs 2.55 billion followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.24 billion, SBI Rs 864.7 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 743.5 million, Tata Tea Rs 597.4 million, Hindustan Lever Rs 340.9 million, Pentafour Software Rs 330.3 million, RIL Rs 326.9 million, MTNL Rs 166.3 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 156.7 million, Telco Rs 138.2 million, BHEL Rs 134.3 million, Infosys Tech Rs 119.7 million, ACC Rs 118.2 million and Tisco Rs 94.9 million in specified counters.

Among other active scrips in 'B1' counters are National Aluminium company Rs 38 million, Bata India Rs 28.7 million, Wipro Rs 23.8 million, Penta Communi Rs 13.8 million, Silverline Rs 12.3 million, HCL Infosys Technology Rs 8.9 million, Mico Rs 7.8 million and Software Solutions Rs 7.6 million.

UNI