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Plane shooting down sends markets into a tizzy; Sensex down 40.4 points to 4553.63

Share prices recorded volatile movements on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange as fears of escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan spread. Yesterday, an Indian Air Force jet shot down a Pakistan aircraft in Gujarat.

Trading at both the bourses opened on an extremely weak note as players resorted to a selling spree on the fear of further escalation of Indo-Pak tension into a full-fledged war. However, in the absence of any major international outcry against the IAF action, marketmen helped the indices to stage a rally during intra-day trading.

Reflecting the trend, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4520.95 points, lower by 73.17 points from the previous close of 4594.12 points, touched a day's low of 4502.97 points, but surpassed the 4,600 mark and touched the day's high of 4616.40 around mid-day, before closing at 4553.63 points, showing a net loss of 40.49 points or 0.88 per cent from the previous finish.

The market witnessed fall in the prices only in the last one hour on speculative selling pressure.

At the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty Index opened slightly lower at 1308.75 points, touched the day's low of 1295.20 points, bounced back to touch day's high of 1328.20 points before closing at 1315.30 points, showing a net gain of 5.55 points or 0.42 per cent as against the previous close.

It was the first day of trading cycle on the NSE and operators made considerably purchases, coupled with limited buying support from foreign institutional investors.

Major negotiated deals were reported at counters of Aptech, Concor, Excel, Satyam Computer and Zee Telefilms on the BSE, dealers said.

Led by Tisco, Satyam Computer, Global Telesystems, Gujarat Ambuja and Infosys Technologies posted handsome gains on the BSE while pivotals like Reliance, Pentafour Software, Britannia, NIIT, Glaxo, L&T, M&M, ACC and SBI dropped moderately on speculative selling pressure, dealers said.

According to the closing list at the NSE, Gammon India, Sesa Goa, Infotech Enterprises, Tata Telecom, Finolex Industries, Indian Rayon, Torrent Pharma, EID Parry, Courts India, Orient Paper, Srichakra Tyres, Jindal Photofilms, Appolo Tyres, Citicorp Securities and Godrej Foods hit the circuit filters.

Analysts said that several side counters mainly from the 'B' group were in the forefront among the gainers at both the exchanges.

The broad-based BSE-100 index dropped by 15.08 points to 2012.71 points from the previous close of 2027.79 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed lower by 3.07 and 1.33 points at 460.12 and 176.15 points from the previous close of 463.19 and 177.48 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BOLT system at the BSE reported during the day was Rs 23.08 billion.

Satyam Computers stood first in the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 3.10 billion, followed by Ranbaxy Laboratories Rs 1.77 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.67 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 1.55 billion, ITC Rs 1.46 billion and Infosys Technologies Rs 986.8 million.

Other actively traded counters were Telco (Rs 895.5 million), Tisco (Rs 895.5 million), L&T (Rs 647.1 million), ACC (Rs 604.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 568.5 million), Reliance (Rs 520.8 million), SBI (Rs 408 million), MTNL (Rs 384.7 million) and BSES (Rs 318.1 million).

UNI

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