COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Pivotals suffer setback, Sensex plunges 39 points

Pivotals suffered a moderate setback on the Bombay Stock Exchange following speculative selling pressure, coupled with limited buying support from institutional investors, pushing the Sensex down by 39 points today.

Leading BSE brokers attributed the retreat in share prices to the limited buying interest from foreign funds and last day of trading cycle on the another leading bourse, the National Stock Exchange. The undertone was steady.

Mirroring the weak trend, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 3305.18, up from the previous close of 3289.56 points, touched the day's high of 3305.63 points, fell sharply to touch the day's low of 3222.58 points and finally ended at 3250.69 points, netting a loss of 38.87 points over the previous close.

Local operators were busy in squaring up their positions in view of end of settlement on the NSE, dealers said and added that there was no any major reason for the market to go down. Leading domestic institutional investor UTI continued its purchases in blue chip companies. The FIIs also made small to moderate purchases in the index-based scrips.

At the interbank market the rupee extended its gain by another 14 paise to 42.38/40 against the American greenback. The rupee's recovery is likely to strengthen market sentiments in the coming days in the capital market, brokers said.

In the absence of short-sale, the market movements are limited and major players are waiting for the lifting of ban on short sale by July 6, a leading BSE broker said.

The broad-based BSE-100 index declined by 18.28 points to 1427.23 points against the previous close of 1445.51 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed lower by 3.68 and 1.16 points to 325.84 and 127.74 points against the previous close of 329.52 and 128.90 points respectively.

The Bolt system displayed total turnover of Rs 7.46 billion. Out of 7,041 listed scrips, 1,304 were traded in the total number of trades 100,825. ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 879 million, followed by Satyam Comp Rs 853.9 million, Reliance Rs 666.5 million, Castrol Rs 551.8 million and State Bank of India Rs 512.9 million.

Other actively traded scrips were Pentafour Software (Rs 365.4 million), Tata Tea (Rs 337.9 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 258.9 million), Telco (Rs 256.8 million), Hind Lever (Rs 195.3 million), L&T (Rs 156.8 million), BHEL (Rs 154 million), ACC (Rs 142.8 million), MTNL (Rs 136.5 million) and NIIT (Rs 124.8 million).

Among the losers, ACC lost by Rs 64.25 to Rs 1,220, Bajaj Auto drifted lower by Rs 5.50 to Rs 572, Hero Honda dropped by Rs 16.50 to Rs 875, ITC declined by Rs 7.75 to Rs 652, L&T moved down by Rs 1.20 to Rs 215.20, NOCIL fell sharply by Rs 17 to Rs 375, Reliance down by Rs 3.70 to Rs 143.30, Satyam Computers slipped by Rs 1.50 to Rs 415, State Bank down by Rs 1.20 to Rs 211.30, Telco by Rs 2.70 to Rs 166.50, Tisco by Rs 1.50 to Rs 125.90.

Pivotals like Hind Lever gained by Rs 6.50 to Rs 1509.50, NIIT firmed up by Rs 7.75 to Rs 1,420.50.

UNI