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Stock markets discounted the benefits arising out of measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India through its mid-term review of Monetary and Credit Policy as share prices crashed further on the Bombay Stock Exchange, pushing down the 30-share BSE Sensex by another 150 points today.

Stock brokers and experts expressed concern over the infusion of lendable resources of over Rs 80 billion in the banking system as even bankers raised their eyebrows over the excess liquidity into the system.

Share prices opened on a steady note but came under pressure immediately after quite some time, following sustained selling pressure from foreign institutional investors and bull operators and registered heavy decline over their previous levels, dealers said.

Zee Telefilm, Ranbaxy, Global Telesystems, Himachal Futuristic, Digital Equipment and Silverline suffered massive declines while Software Solutions, SBI and a few other scrips remained unhurt, they said.

Reflecting the bearish trend, 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4601.40 points (day's high), fell below the 4400 mark by touching the day's low of 4368.85 points, before closing at 4444.56 points, showing a net loss of 150.01 points as against the previous close of 4594.57 points.

Sensex loses 360 points in four sessions

The Sensex has lost nearly 360 points in last four straight trading sessions. On October 25, the Sensex had ended at 4815.

FII selling, bull unloading seen as cause for crash

Commenting on the continuous fall and sustained FII selling in the market, U R Bhat, chief investment officer, Jardine Fleming AMC, said that the market has gone down as much due to FII-selling-spree as the weak trend triggered by massive bull hammering.

''Our forecast on India has always remain bullish and we will continue investing in future,'' Bhat said.

The broad-based BSE-100 index declined sharply by 87.68 points to 2071.50 points as against the previous close of 2158.18 points.

Leading BSE brokers pointed out that the outstanding positions taken up by players is the main reason behind the major fall in share prices. Besides, the possibility of FIIs staying away from the market during December 15 - January 15 in view of reported Y2K problem also affected market sentiments on the bourses, they said.

Among other indices, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed lower by 21.25 and 15.60 points to 483.20 and 185.28 points as against the previous close of 504.45 and 200.98 points respectively.

Both the BSE and NSE extended their trading sessions by half-an- hour till 1600 hours IST today. The BSE put out a reason for the delay to some technical snag in I-Dow Network and explained that the BOLT terminals of many members were responding very slowly. Therefore, the trading has been extended by half-an-hour.

Marginal fall in HLL checked Sensex dive

Analysts said that the fall in the Sensex was restricted only for 150 points because of marginal fall in the heavyweight Hindustan Lever and some others.

The Hindustan Lever scrip posted a loss of 1 per cent as against 7-8 per cent fall in other scrips.

Satyam Computer Services posted the highest turnover of Rs 3.91 billion, followed by Zee Telefilms Rs 2.54 billion, Reliance Rs 1.82 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.41 billion, Infosys Technologies Rs 1.22 billion.

Other actively traded counters were SBI (Rs 1.19 billion), Silverline (Rs 913 million), NIIT (Rs 847.6 million).

Weak trend engulfs the NSE

Share prices crashed further at the National Stock Exchange on sustained heavy selling pressure from foreign funds and local operators today.

The marketmen discounted the RBI credit policy. Brokers pointed out various reasons for the continuous fall in the market. Sustained selling spree by foreign institutional investors, lack of buying support from domestic institutional investors and huge downloading by bull operators for last couple of days.

Mirroring the bearish phase, the S&P CNX Nifty Index opened at 1367.90 points, touched a day's high of 1370.80 points, a low of 1296.70 points before closing at 1325.45 points, showing a net loss of 42.25 points as against the previous close of 1367.70 points.

The S&P CNX -500 index dropped by 36.12 points to 972.62 points from the previous close of 1008.74 points. The S&P CNX Nifty Junior moved down by 120.90 points to 2588.55 points as against the previous close of 2709.45 points.

The S&P CNX Defty declined by 33.60 points to 1058.60 points as against the previous close of 1092.20 points.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the day was Rs 35.51 billion which came from a trading of 126.56 million shares. Debentures traded were valued at Rs 265,000.

The exchange witnessed an increase in 183 securities, decline in 931, 31 shares held steady while 196 securities hit their price bands during the day.

Satyam Computer Services topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 5.60 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 2.60 billion, Ranbaxy Rs 2.59 billion, SBI Rs 2.45 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.93 billion, Reliance Rs 1.85 billion, Infosys Technologies Rs 1.28 billion, Global Telesystems Rs 1.06 billion, Himachal Futuristic Rs 1 billion, L&T Rs 993.2 million, ITC Rs 895.5 million and Square D Software Rs 705.5 million.

The top five S&P CNX Nifty gainers were Novartis Rs 1208 (Rs 1119.25), NIIT Rs 2164.50 (Rs 2101.45), East India Hotel Rs 203.95 (Rs 202), Bank of India Rs 21.80 (Rs 21.60) and P&G Rs 913 (Rs 906.20).

The top five losers were Indian Hotels Rs 368.40 (Rs 400.40), Gujarat Ambuja Cement Rs 541.85 (Rs 588.65), IPCL Rs 113.30 (Rs 122.25), Reckitt & Coleman Rs 360.40 (Rs 387.95) and Tata Tea Rs 542.80 (Rs 583.25).

UNI

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