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Pivotals slide on FI selling after firm start; Sensex down 50 points to 3265.91

After a firm start, pivotals declined sharply towards the fag end at the Bombay Stock Exchange on sustained selling pressure from institutional investors and speculators, pushing down the Sensex by about 50 points to close below the 3,300 mark on the first day of weekly trading cycle.

Barring the few scrips from the pharma and fast movable consumer goods, almost all the counters were weak, a senior dealer at the leading institutionalised brokerage house said, adding that the software counters too witnessed mixed trend today.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 3331.91 points, touched the day's high of 3361.92, fell to the day's low of 3265.91 points and ended at that level, showing a net loss of 49.66 points from the previous close of 3315.57 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also drifted lower by 22.28 points to 1439.24 points as against Friday's close of 1461.52 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices eased by 4.65 and 1.82 points to 333.40 and 130.61 points from the previous close of 338.05 and 132.43 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BSE stood at Rs 13.26 billion. Pentafour Software topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 2.32 billion, followed by ITC Rs 1.58 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 1.19 billion.

Other actively traded counters were Telco (Rs 578.5 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 552.9 million), Reliance (Rs 456.8 million), Castrol India (Rs 432.2 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 365.4 million), MTNL (Rs 267.9 million), SBI (Rs 262.6 million), Tata Tea (Rs 240.9 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 224.3 million), Nestle (Rs 196.3 million), NIIT (Rs 191.1 million) and ACC (Rs 187.9 million).

The losers were Bajaj Auto which dropped by Rs 10.50 to Rs 489.50, BHEL Rs 4.90 to Rs 252.40, BSES Rs 9.50 to Rs 148.50, Cadbury's Rs 11.50 to Rs 575.75, Colgate Rs 13.20 to Rs 165.80, Crompton Greaves Rs 3.15 to Rs 43.70, Dabur India Rs 3.50 to Rs 573, Dr Reddy's Rs 3.75 to Rs 535.25, Grasim Rs 13.50 to Rs 159, Hindalco Rs 6.50 to Rs 486.75, L&T Rs 7 to Rs 180, Philips Rs 5.50 to Rs 9.70 to Rs 112. Reliance Rs 3.50 to Rs 129.10 and Satyam Computers was down by Rs 24.50 to Rs 906.

Among the gainers, Asian Hotels rose by Rs 2.30 to Rs 157.50, Castrol shot up by Rs 13.25 to Rs 830, Glaxo Rs 7.25 to Rs 630, Hero Honda Rs 15.50 to Rs 602, India Hotel Rs 4.50 to Rs 369, ITC Rs 5 to Rs 806, Nestle Rs 5.50 to Rs 522, NIIT Rs 67.50 to Rs 2184.

UNI

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