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Zee, Reliance hog limelight on an eventful day; Sensex on a roller-coaster, closes at 4716

Early gains recorded by equities on the Bombay Stock Exchange were liquidated on selling pressure from domestic operators. They were influenced partly by the decision of the special court to hold securities scam accused Harshad Mehta guilty for misappropriating funds of Maruti Udyog Limited today.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE-30 Sensitive Index opened at 4822.16, rose to an intra-day high of 4871.34 and low of 4715.25 before ending at 4715.67, showing a net loss of 42.15 points from the previous close of 4757.82.

Marketmen said that rumours were doing the rounds in the market that Mehta was sentenced by the special court, trying him for the securities scam that rocked the country in 1992, to five years imprisonment. However, the court will deliver the period of conviction tomorrow.

There was cheerful news for Zee Telefilms, whose scrip rose on news that the company had announced a stock split. The scrip ended at an upper-circuit of Rs 5,118.

The BSE-100 index ended at 2219.41, showing a decline of 1.53 points from the last close of 2220.94.

Also, the BSE-200 index ended 1.14 points lower at 510.87, while the Dollex index ended at 195.21, showing a net loss of 0.44 points. The BSE-500 index ended 2.43 points lower at 512.85.

Reliance ended at Rs 216, Tisco at Rs 138, ACC at Rs 200, SBI at Rs 209, Hindustan Lever at Rs 2,592 (day's high Rs 2,650), BPL at Rs 535, Satyam Computers at Rs 1,085, Pentafour Software at Rs 602 and Infosys Technologies at Rs 7,100 (day's high Rs 7,550).

The domestic institutions booked profits in index-based scrips at higher levels, said brokers.

The total turnover on the BOLT network was Rs 30.87 billion from trading in 95.5 million shares.

Ranbaxy Labs topped the turnover list with Rs 3.36 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 2.99 billion), Reliance (Rs 2.85 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 2.63 billion) and Silverline (Rs 1.31 billion).

The other scrips that recorded a high turnover were Infosys, Global Telesystems, NIIT, Pentafour, Sterlite, Himachal Futuristic, SBI, HDFC, BPL and HLL.

UNI

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