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Equities take a sharp dip at BSE as NSE settlement ends; Sensex down 59 points to 4773.65

Share prices reacted sharply at the Bombay Stock Exchange following profit-taking selling pressure from local operators coupled with squaring up of positions by them in view of the settlement end at the National Stock Exchange today.

Dealers said that the market opened on a better note, and turned weak mainly because of profit-booking by market players and squaring up of positions by local operators. Side counters posted considerable gains while the pivotals did not witness major activity, they said.

The infotech stocks like Satyam Computers, Pentafour Software and a few others declined sharply as the gains posted by them were wiped out today, following selling spree by operators, a leading BSE broker said.

Reflecting the trend, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4840.97 points, slightly higher from the previous close of 4832.56 points, touched the day's high of 4847.09 points, a low of 4762.95 points before closing at 4773.65 points, showing a net loss of 58.91 points or 1.21 per cent from the previous close.

Market sources said that the figures of foreign institutional investors' investment also discouraged the market sentiment. The FIIs continued their selling yesterday and their net sales stood at Rs 990 million on September 6.

The broad-based BSE-100 index closed lower by 24.18 points to 2136.40 points from the previous close of 2160.58 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed lower by 3.58 and 1.41 points to 492.66 and 188.60 points as against the previous close of 496.24 and 190.01 points. The BSE-500 also ended lower by 8.97 points to 1458.29 points from the previous close of 1467.26 points.

Total turnover on the BOLT system shot up smartly to Rs 21.54 billion as against yesterday's turnover of Rs 15.03 billion.

Ranbaxy Labs topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 2.46 billion, followed by Pentafour Software Rs 1.77 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 1.50 billion, Telco Rs 949.8 million, L&T Rs 885.6 million, SBI Rs 671.6 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 609 million, Apollo Tyres Rs 562.5 million, Digital Equipment Rs 558.5 million, Reliance Rs 526.2 million, MTNL Rs 496.4 million, Tata Tea Rs 492.9 million, BPL Rs 457.4 million and Tisco Rs 427.2 million.

Other actively traded counters were Global Telesystems, HCL Infosys, Himachal Futuristic, Silverline, DSQ Software, Wyeth Ledel, Rolta India, Reliance Petroleum, Cipla Limited, Bausch and Lomb, Wimpro, India Cements, Sri Adhikari, Lupin Labs and SSI Limited.

UNI

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