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Sentiment subdued; Nifty slides 13 points, 835.80

Share prices exhibited moderate decline on selling pressure by foreign financial institutions and bull operators on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the subdued sentiment in the market, the S&P CNX Nifty index slid by 13.30 points to 835.80 points against 849.10 points the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior index slid by 25.20 points to 1457.90 from 1483.10 and the S&P CNX Defty moved down by 10.40 points to 684.30 points from 694.70 points.

The S&P CNX 500 index were down by 10.21 points to 579.63 points from 589.84 points while the CNX Midcap 200 index dropped by 11.35 points to 516.56 points from 527.91 points.

The total turnover, involving Rs 57.46 million worth of shares in 189,933 trades was Rs 17.34 billion and the debentures traded value was Rs 7.92 million.

About 215 securities advanced, 735 declined and 75 remained unchanged. And 38 securities hit their price bands today.

FIIs unloaded shares worth Rs 455 million against their lower purchases worth Rs 44.6 million indicating an outflow of Rs 4113 million. However, domestic institutions supported the market with their net buying worth of Rs 92.5 million.

The top gainers in the S&P CNX Nifty were ICICI 4.81 per cent increase to Rs 42.45, BSES 2.17 per cent to Rs 155.40, India Hotel 1.97 per cent to Rs 414.15, ABB 1.73 per cent to Rs 524.60 and NIIT 0.88 per cent to Rs 1296.05.

The top losers were: Reliance Petroleum 6.53 per cent lose to Rs 18.60, Orient Bank 5.94 per cent to Rs 38, HDFC Bank 5.65 per cent to Rs 58.50, Bank of India 5.20 per cent to Rs 22.80 and BHEL 5.07 per cent to Rs 230.45.

Satyam Computers registered the highest turnover of Rs 5.08 billion, followed by ITC (Rs 3.75 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.18 billion), SBI (Rs 1.14 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 949.6 million), Reliance (Rs 813.8 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 345.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 343.9 million), HCL-HP (Rs 278.1 million), BFL Software (Rs 227.1 million), Castrol (Rs 185 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 182.9 million), Sterlite (Rs 167 million).

The other actively traded counters were: Tata Tea (Rs 165.4 million), ACC (Rs 163.9 million), BHEL (Rs 140.5 million), NIIT (Rs 140.4 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 135.6 million), L&T (Rs 134.2 million), MTNL (Rs 131.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 127.3 million), Square D Software (Rs 104.4 million), Telco (Rs 89.7 million) and LeadedSys (Rs 80.1 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 1.67 billion. The 12.08 per cent government bond maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 300 million at a weighted yield of 11.60 per cent. The 15.50 per cent non-SLR bond of ICICI maturing in 1998 was traded for Rs 100 million at a weighted yield of 11.62 per cent. Two repo trades worth Rs 750 million were transacted at repo rates of 8.70 per cent and 8.75 per cent for repo terms of 12 and 3 days respectively. Total debenture traded value today Rs 5.89 million.

UNI