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Sensex tumbles 70 points to 3673.51

Heavy margins imposed by the exchange authorities finally arrested the bullish phase at the Bombay Stock Exchange as the BSE Sensex fell sharply by 70 points due to across the board decline in the share prices today following bull heavy liquidation.

The stock market also discounted the news of the passing of the Patents bill by the Lok Sabha yesterday as the players preferred to postpone their long-term commitments due to some initial caution from foreign institutional investors, dealers said.

Reflecting the downtrend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 3763.30 points, touched the day's high of 3770.72, and then tumbled to the day's low of 3673.22 points, before closing at 3673.51 points, a net loss of 70.15 points against the previous close of 3743.37 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also declined sharply by 32.15 points to 1603.03 points from the previous close of 1635.18 points. The exchange authorities have imposed heavy margins in the range of 22-60 per cent (scripwise), which has affected the broker community. Brokers have to pay the margins on the behalf of their clients, a senior BSE broker said.

According to another broker, the big bulls were fed up with the heavy margins and unloaded heavily in the prime counters, resulting in a sharp decline in share prices. The BSE Sensex has lost nearly 110 points after registering a huge gain of 545 points in post-Budget trading.

The pharma scrips initially went up on good buying support but later came under selling pressure, dealers said. Barring very few scrips -- like HLL, PSI Data, Aptech, Infosys Tech, Vindhya Tele, Abott Lab and Dr Reddy -- most scrips dived, dealers said. The FIIs stayed away while the Unit Trust of India bought in select counters, they said.

The losers included prominent firms like ACC, Reliance, ITC, Satyam Computers, Telco, Reckitt and Coleman, Digital Equip, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and SBI. Analysts attributed the fall in the share prices to a technical correction.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices also dropped by 7.93 and 3.04 points to 369.25 and 144.82 points from the previous close of 377.18 and 147.86 points respectively.

Among prominent issues, Asian Hotels declined by Rs 5 to Rs 142, BHEL by Rs 9.50 to Rs 240.90, BSES by Rs 2 to Rs 150, Burrough Wellcome by Rs 55.25 to Rs 1023, Cadbury by Rs 9 to Rs 650, Castrol by Rs 16 to Rs 832, Colgate by Rs 11.90 to Rs 184.70, Dabur India by Rs 36.50 to Rs 593.50, Dr reddy by Rs 16.25 to Rs 785, E Merck by Rs 39 to Rs 715, Glaxo by Rs 30 to Rs 910, Grasim by Rs 7.50 to Rs 164, Hindalco by Rs 20 to Rs 390, Itc by Rs 11.25 to Rs 979, L&T by Rs 11 to Rs 225, Nestle by Rs 19.25 to Rs 525, NIIT by Rs 30.50 to Rs 2103, Pentafour Soft by Rs 39 to Rs 1039, Reliance by Rs 3.60 to Rs 140.10, SBI by Rs 2 to Rs 205, Telco by Rs 12 to Rs 187.60 and Tisco by Rs 2.90 to Rs 114.

The few gainers were Bajaj Auto, rising by Rs 2.25 to Rs 541, Hero Honda by Rs 3 to Rs 785, Hind Lever by Rs 15.50 to Rs 2155, Lakme Ltd by Rs 5.60 to Rs 94.40, Mahindra & Mahindra by Rs 1.10 to Rs 255.

UNI

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