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FIIs remain buyers despite markets' nosedive; Sensex down 6 pc, Nifty down 5.75 pc

The week ended May 28 saw major drops in the country's premier bourses, the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. The Indo-Pak border clashes in the Kargil region of Kashmir, marked by shooting down of two Indian aircraft and a helicopter, cast a shadow on the BSE and the NSE.

The BSE Sensex closed at 3773.32, down 242.43 points or 6.03 per cent from last Friday's close of 4015.75.

The NSE's S&P CNX Nifty closed at 1081.50, down 66 points or 5.74 per cent from last Friday's close of 1147.40.

The FII investment turned out to be positive despite the border tension. The net FII investment in the month till May 28 stood at Rs 17.60 billion.

According to daily FII investment trends available from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, barring May 26, the FIIs were the net buyers during the week.

According to market sources, the annualised badla (forward deals) rates quoted lower at 8.5 per cent from 10.5 per cent last week.

The badla rates have came down mainly because of unwinding of overbought positions by operators.

With the lower badla rates, the market is likely to move in a narrow range in the coming week, said a senior analyst at a leading broking firm.

The analyst said in case the tension on the border continued for a long-time, the sensex may suffer a loss of another 150-200 points.

According to a market dealers, there was a mixed trend, expectedly, in commodity stocks while refinery stocks faced selling pressure, specifically HPCL, on announcement of cancellation of bonus issue, consolidation led to rally in pharma and the fast moving consumer good, in early part of the week.

Total combined turnover of the BSE and the NSE stood at Rs 174.06 billion during the week.

The total market capitalisation on the BSE got reduced by Rs 92.11 billion during the week.

The leading BSE brokers said that the market would have suffered more losses had the Unit Trust of India not bought heavily to check the falling prices. They said that the UTI has made considerable purchases in prominent counters.

Meanwhile, other indices of the BSE like the BSE-200 and the Dollex declined by 20.65 and 8.85 to 372.78 and 144.37 points from the previous week's close of 393.43 and 153.22 points.

At the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty Junior lost heavily by 101.50 points to 1889.25 points from the previous week's close of 1990.35 points.

The NSE Defty ended lower by 55.80 points to 873.15 from 928.95 points. The CNX-500 and Midcap-200 closed lower by 42.17 and 30.20 points to 781.83 and 674.65 points respectively.

UNI

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