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Disastrous week at stock exchanges

Marketmen, unahappy over the general budget proposals for not considering their long-time demand of introducing a buyback shares scheme, turned into sellers. The FIIs pressed sales in the heavy weighted scrips in the fear of possible negative impact on the Indian economy by the trade sanctions imposed by United States and some other European countries. The Moody's sounding alarm on the country's rating and similar views expressed by Standard and Poor's rating agency also affected market sentiments badly towards the end of the week.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the BSE Sensex fell below the psychological barrier of 3500 to close at 3417.89 points against the previous week's close of 3686.39 points.

Commenting on the downtrend, BSE vice-president Rajendra Banthia attributed the major fall on the bse to the continous offloading by foreign funds in the index based scrips. He said the future trend of the market is entirely dependent on the FIIs actions.

According to market sources, the selloff was led by foreign funds like Jardine Fleming and Morgan Stanley. The sources further said that international rating agency Moody's investor services indicated that it would review India's country ceiling for foreign currency debt and bank deposits for a possible downgrade had a role in the Sensex's plunge.

On the opening day of the week, the market was looking for some market friendly annoucements like the buy-back scheme in the pre-Budget session. The market displayed smart recovery during the pre-Budget session but witnessed panic selling in the later session following disappointment of marketmen from the Budget. The market continued to fall thereafter till the end of the week, despite continous buying support by domestic institutional investors in bluechips.

The broadbased BSE-100 index also fell sharply by 130.20 points to 1513.94 against the previous week's close of 1513.94 points. Similarly, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices crashed by 30.96 and 13.43 points to 344.78 and 137.33 against the previous close of 375.74 and 150.74 points respectively.

Heavyweights like ACC, Bajaj Auto, Hind Lever, ITC, L&T, Reliance, State Bank of India, Telco and Tisco reported heavy losses during the week.

The total turnover on the BSE rose sharply by Rs 13.65 billion to Rs 80.45 billion against the previous week's business volume of Rs 66.8 billion.

Among the major losers, ACC crashed by Rs 161.25 to Rs 1517.50, Bajaj Auto slipped by Rs 70.75 to Rs 545.50, Hind Lever down by Rs 53 to Rs 1540, Reliance drifted lower by Rs 10 to Rs 157, State Bank of India (SBI) scrips lost by Rs 43.80 to Rs 198.20, Telco moved down by Rs 36.50 to Rs 208.50, Tisco by Rs 2.30 to Rs 147.80.

Meanwhile, a similar, trend was noticed on the country's other leading stock market, the National Stock Exchange, during the week.

Mirroring the downtrend, the Nifty shed by 69.65 points to close below the important mark of 1000 to 993.50 points against the previous week's close of 1063.15 points.

The Defty also slumped by 59.25 points to 823.60 points against the previous week's close of 882.85 points. The Midcap lost sharply by 206.35 points to 1413.85 points against the previous close of 1620.20 points.

The total turnover on the NSE moved up by Rs 8.4 billion to Rs 106.6 billion against the previous week's turnover of Rs 98.2 billion.

UNI