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Market down on settlement end; Sensex dips 66 points, goes under 4500

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index fell sharply by 66 points and closed below the 4,500 mark, following squaring up of positions by market players coupled with continued selling pressure from foreign funds on the last day of current weekly settlement today.

The market opened on a firm note, but the uptrend could not be sustained for long as most of the players preferred to square off their long-term positions in view of ongoing Indo-Pak tension.

Although the marketmen discounted the impact of shooting down of a Pakistani plane by Indian Air Force on Tuesday, the market responded cautiously in last two days. However, being the last day of current settlement, players resorted to selling to reduce their long-term positions.

The market was in overbought position and a few of the scrips witnessed heavy volumes with the net outstandings reportedly touching to Rs 21 billion during the week, dealers said.

Reflecting the trend, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4567.31 points, touched the day's high of 4572.53 points, fell below the important mark of 4500 points to touch day's low of 4479.73 points before closing at 4487.87 points, showing a net loss of 65.77 points or 2.20 per cent from the previous close of 4543.64 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index too declined sharply by 20.89 points to 1990.10 points as against the previous close of 2010.99 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed lower by 4.17 and 1.56 points at 455.45 and 174.48 points from the previous close of 459.62 and 176.04 points respectively.

According to dealers, L&T, Tata Chemicals and Infosys Technologies reported considerable gains during the day.

Total turnover on the BSE reported during the day was Rs 22.22 billion.

Satyam Computers topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 3.37 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 2.59 billion, Ranbaxy Laboratories Rs 1.94 billion, L&T Rs 1.08 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 778.9 million.

Other actively traded counters were Reliance (Rs 622.7 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 571.9 million), SBI (Rs 570.5 million), ACC (Rs 556.2 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 427.9 million), Telco (Rs 356.8 million), MTNL (Rs 356.6 million) and Tata Tea (Rs 269.8 million).

UNI

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