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Sensex dive continues, plunges 95 points to 4730; high-margin regime hits business

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index nosedived by about 95 points and closed below the 4800 mark. The downtrend continued for the third straight day due to heavy selling pressure from market players.

The Sensex which touched a new all-time high of 4905.89 points on Monday has recorded a major fall of about 176 points in last three days.

Dealers said that the outcome of poll surveys had mainly affected the market sentiment. While the heavy margins imposed by stock exchanges also restricted business activity, they said and added that there was no buying strength witnessed in the market during the course of trading today.

Mirroring the bearish trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened on a firm note at 4813.73 points (day's high), fell below the psychological barrier of 4,800 to touch day's low of 4720.19 points, before closing at 4729.73 points, showing a net loss of 94.71 points or 1.98 per cent from the previous close of 4824.44 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 too dropped by 43.01 points to 2110.23 points as against the previous close of 2153.24 points.

Barring the Satyam Computers and Infosys Technologies, most of the shares decline at the BSE.

In the wake of expectations that the Congress would strengthen its tally in northern states which would have major impact on the formation of a stable government, dealers said the market wants stability in the country and will always react negatively if there are chances of a hung Parliament.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices ended lower by 10.41 and 4.20 points to 484.44 and 185.33 points as against the previous close of 494.85 and 185.33 points respectively.

The BSE-500 index too dropped by 30.45 points to 1430.93 points from the previous close of 1461.38 points.

Total turnover on the BOLT system stood at Rs 14.61 billion. Ranbaxy Labs topped the list by registering the highest turnover of Rs 1.79 billion, followed by Telco Rs 939.1 million, SBI Rs 924.5 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 782.3 million and Satyam Computers Rs 746.4 million.

Other actively traded counters were Reliance Rs 745.2 million, ITC Rs 737.6 million, Tata Tea Rs 533.1 million, L&T Rs 515.9 million, Pentafour Software Rs 433.3 million, ACC Rs 335.1 million, Tisco Rs 296.6 million, Apollo Tyres Rs 236.8 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 236.8 million and Sterlite Rs 228.7 million.

Top five gainers at the BSE were Infoquest Sofine Drugs, Atlas Gears , IDI Limited and Stanrose Mafatlal, while the top five losers were Delton Cable, Vidhi Dyestu, Banaras Bead, Rainbow Paper, and Bhandari Ind.

UNI

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