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S&P's downgrade of FIs affects sentiment, Sensex down 42 points, goes under 2800, 2783.10

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex closed below the psychological barrier of 2800 by losing another 42 points as the credit rating agency S&P's revision in the rating of India's four leading financial institutions added fuel in the depressed market conditions on the last day of weekly trading cycle today.

Barring a few scrips like Raymond, Sterlite, Bata and Infosys Technologies, all other scrips registered moderate decline on lack of buying support from leading market players.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 2825.06 points, inched up to touch the day's high of 2826.16 points, fell below the important mark of 2800 to touch the day's low of 2772.04 points before closing at 2783.10 points, showing a net loss of 41.98 points as against the previous close of 2825.08 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index drifted lower by 17.53 points to 1242.33 points from the previous close of 1259.86 points.

Engineering giant and the vehicle major Telco, Satyam Computers, ITC, Reliance, Zee Telefilms, Pentafour, Castrol, ACC have emerged as the major losers. Corporation Bank scrip even touched an all-time-low of Rs 83.25, an analyst at a leading financial institution said.

Leading BSE brokers attributed the continuous downtrend, to the political uncertainty at the Centre in the wake of exit-poll predictions. The leading domestic institutional investor, Unit Trust of India did not enter the market while the FIIs also had limited business, while Life Insurance Corporation and General Insurance Corporation have made marginal purchase at select counters, they said.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices have further eased by 3.95 and 1.66 points to 289.03 and 113.17 points as against the previous close of 292.98 and 114.83 points respectively.

Among the issues, ACC dropped by Rs 40 to Rs 885, Bajaj Auto Rs 3.50 to Rs 533, BHEL Rs 6.20 to Rs 229.70, BSES Limited Rs 2.90 to Rs 141.80, Cadbury's Rs 0.75 to Rs 386, Castrol Rs 12.75 to Rs 622.75, Colgate 50 paise to Rs 167.60, Dr Reddy's Rs 9.75 to Rs 411.75, Glaxo Rs 4.25 to Rs 553.25, Grasim Rs 5.50 to Rs 139.20, Hindustan Lever Rs 18.25 to Rs 1567.00, Hindalco Rs 6.25 to Rs 495, ICICI Rs 1.70 to Rs 42.90, IDBI Rs 1.55 to Rs 35.35, India Hotels Rs 3 to Rs 422, ITC Limited Rs 3.50 to Rs 681.25, L&T Rs 2.40 to Rs 142.40, Mahindra & Mahindra Rs 4.20 to rs 149.90, MTNL Rs 4 to Rs 172.50, NIIT Rs 2.25 to Rs 1355.75, Pentafour Software Rs 14.25 to Rs 519, Reliance Rs 1.70 to Rs 111.50, Telco Rs 5.20 to Rs 115.20 and Tisco Rs 2.20 to Rs 84.30.

The few gainers were Raymond which closed higher by Rs 1.40 to Rs 72.50, SBI 80 paise to Rs 152.80, Sterlite 30 paise to Rs 124.40, and Bata up by Rs 6.70 to Rs 206.70.

Total turnover on the BSE stood at Rs 11.50 billion. Satyam Computer topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 1.97 million, followed by ITC Rs 1.46 million, Reliance Rs 824.1 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 822.4 million and Telco Rs 763.2 million.

Other actively traded scrips were SBI (Rs 686.5 million), Pentafour Software (Rs 642.4 million), Castrol (Rs 484.5 million), Tata Tea (Rs 258.2 million), ACC (Rs 248.6 million), MTNL (Rs 201.8 million), Tisco (Rs 199.9 million), BHEL (Rs 187.7 million), L&T (Rs 145 million) and Glaxo Rs (134.5 million).

UNI

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