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Sensex tumbles 156 points to go below 4200 mark

Share prices tumbled on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday amidst volatile trading on the first day of the weekly trading cycle, resulting in a major decline of 156 points in the BSE Sensex in a single trading session.

Heavy selling by the foreign institutional investors and speculators coupled with the lack of a buying support from domestic institutional investors affected the trading sentiments on the BSE.

The weak GDR market and political uncertainty also added fuel in the down trend, market sources said. The last day of trading settlement on the National Stock Exchange was another major reason behind the bearish trend.

Reflecting the trend, the BSE sensitive index opened at 4277.29 points, which was also the day's high, declined below the important mark of 4200 to touch the day's low of 4151.63, and recovered marginally to close at 4165.37, showing a net loss of 155.60 points over the previous close of 4320.97 points on Thursday, August 14.

The BSE-100 index declined sharply by 60.30 points to 1818.92 points against the previous close of 1879.22 points.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices also closed lower by 11.61 and 5.30 points to 408.16 and 190.30 points against the previous close of 419.77 and 195.60 points respectively.

According to leading BSE brokers, the FIIs sold heavily at the prime counters like TISCO, TELCO, Reliance, Larsen and Toubro, HPCL, MTNL and Hindustan Lever.

A section of the brokers also attributed Tuesday's market crash to the 'technical correction'. They said that marketmen had made heavy purchases at the select counters, some of them bought in the 'no delivery scrips' and fundamentally strong counters and squared up their positions now, resulting in widespread losses in the BSE indices.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system of the BSE reported during the day was at Rs 9.13 billion.

ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.27 billion, followedby Reliance Rs 1.87 billion, SBI Rs 874.6 million, TISCO Rs 813 million and Tata Tea Rs 373.9 million.

Hectic activity was also observed at the other counters like MTNL Rs 237.9 million, Hind Lever Rs 229.4 million, TELCO Rs 191.9 million, ACC Rs 142.2 million, Colgate Rs 119.2 million, Castrol Rs 111.4 million, BSES Rs 95.2 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 92.4 million, ICICI Rs 89.4 million and L&T Rs 86.5 million.

National Stock Exchange

Pivotals declined sharply on the NSE on Tuesday, the last day of the weekly trading cycle, following heavy selling pressure from speculators and foreign institutional investors, coupled with the lack of buying support from domestic institutional investors.

Reflecting the bearish phase, the NSE-50 index opened at 1201.50, touched the day's high of 1203.15, declined below the psychological barrier of 1200 to touch the day's low of 1177.10, and marginally recovered to close at 1180.70 points, showing a net loss of 20.75 points over the previous close of 1201.45 points on Monday.

The midcap index also moved down by 8.30 points to 1311.85 points over the previous close of 1320.15 points.

The total turnover on the NSE reported during the day was at Rs 15.78 billion. Tobacco giant ITC topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 5.56 billion, followed by Reliance Rs 2.26 billion, State Bank of India Rs 1.44 billion, TISCO Rs 1.22 billion and Tata Tea Rs 945.2 billion.

Hectic activity was also observed at the other counters like TELCO Rs 433.9 million, Colgate Rs 220.8 million, Castrol Rs 202.8 million, L&T Rs 188.7 million, MTNL Rs 180.8 million, Hind Lever Rs 158.7 million, Tata Chem Rs 138.5 million, BSES Rs 129.3 million, ICICI Rs 118.8 million, Gujarat Ambuja Rs 102.7 million, Rel Capital Rs 102.1 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 80.4 million, Asian Paint Rs 78 million, BHEL Rs 75.9 million, Infosys Tech Rs 67.7 million, IPCL Rs 65.8 million, IDBI Rs 65 million, Satyam Comp 59.9 million and HPCL Rs 50.5 million.

The top five gainers were Guj Ambuja, BHEL, Essar Steel, Indian Rayon and TELCO. The top five losers were Asian Paints, Tata Chem, HPCL, Bajaj Auto and Cochin Refineries.

Meanwhile, share prices drifted lower on the Over The Counter Exchange of India (OTCEI) following the lack of buying support from investors.

The OTC composite index opened at 113.42 points, touched the day's high of 114.08 points, declined to the day's low of 112.50 points, and later closed at 112.76 points, showing a net loss of 0.66 points over the previous close of 113.42 points.

UNI