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Sensex crashes for second day by 87 points

Equity prices crashed further on heavy off-loading by foreign institutional investors despite selective buying support from Indian fund managers on the last day of settlement on the country's premier bourse -- Bombay Stock Exchange -- on Friday.

The market opened with profit booking at lower level by the bull operators and continued selling pressure from the FIIs. In the mid-trading session, domestic institutional investors bought considerable amount of heavy weighted shares and improved the equity prices marginally, but this did not stay for long.

Consequently, shares prices reacted modestly at the fag end of the day, leading brokers said.

The market sources said that the sharp fall in stock markets in East and Southeast Asia was reflected in the domestic capital markets.

The Singapore bourse crashed heavily and touched the lowest mark of 1,723 points since June 1993. The brokers and analysts blamed the fall on the spill over effects from developments in neighbouring Malaysia.

Resuming on a weak note, the BSE sensitive index (30 scrips) opened lower at 3916.58 points, touched the day's high of 3945.67, a low of 3851.04, and closed at 3876.08 points as against its previous close 3963.15 points, showing a net loss of 86.97 points.

The BSE-100 index dropped below the psychological barrier of 1700 mark and settled down at 1694.76 points over Thursday's close of 1732.78 points shedding 38.02 points.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices decreased by 09.01 and 04.12 points to 380.04 and 174.02, points as compared to the last trading day's close of 389.05 and 178.14 points respectively.

The depreciation of the Indian currency against the US dollar in the forex market and the likely hike in petroleum prices in the near future were the other reasons for the downfall of the equity prices, brokers added.

Though the scrips lost further ground, the volume of business increased by Rs 1.8 billion to Rs 9.9 billion as compared to Thursday's total turnover of Rs 8.1 billion involving 39.4 million shares.

ITC continued with the highest turnover of Rs 2.6 billion followed by Reliance Industries Rs 1.8 billion, SBI Rs 1.7 billion, Tata Tea Rs 763 million, Tisco Rs 359.4 million, Castrol India Rs 295.7 million, Colgate Rs 172 million, Telco Rs 163 million, MTNL Rs 148.6 million, ACC Rs 113.5 million, Hind Lever Rs 143.4 million, L&T Rs 93.6 million, Gujarat Ambuja Cement Rs 91.7 million, IPCL Rs 68 million and BHEL Rs 66.6 million in specified counters.

Good transactions were witnessed at Satyam Comp, Infosys Tech, TVS Suzuki, Bank of India, Piramal Healthcare, Madras Ref, Nat Alum Company, Credit Rating, Oil and Natural Gas, HDFC Bank, Reliance Pet, Cipla, DIG Equip, Bank of Baroda and Gujarat Chem at 'B1' counters.

National Stock Exchange

Pivotals crashed further on the National Stock Exchange today following heavy selling pressure from institutional investors.

Reflecting the trend, the NSE-50 index opened at 1134.20, touched the day's high of 1134.20, declined to the day's low of 1098.90 points and later closed at 1105.00, suffering a major loss of 29.65 points over the previous close of 1134.65 points.

Similarly, the midcap index also moved down by 20.60 points against the previous close of 1275.75 points.

The total turnover reported during the day was at Rs 23.6 billion. The tobacco giant ITC topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 8.8 billion, followed by SBI in Rs 3.6 billion, Reliance Rs 3.5 billion, Tata Tea Rs 1.8 billion and Tisco Rs 751 million.

Hectic activity was observed at the other counters like Telco Rs 509.2 million, ACC Rs 485.3 million, Colgate Rs 374.1 million, Castrol Rs 345.5 million, L&T Rs 301.6 million, Guj Ambuja Rs 289.4 million, MTNL Rs 281.8 million, BHEL Rs 199.3 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 171.9 million, Hind Lever Rs 148.6 million, Rel Capital Rs 146.6 million, BSES Rs 136.5 million, IPCL Rs 101.3 million, HDFC Rs 89.6 million, IFCI Rs 70.6 million, ICICI Rs 59.4 million, Dr Reddy Rs 48.8 million, P&G Rs 43.4 million, Chambal Fert Rs 42.4 million and BPL Rs 40.7 million.

The top NSE gainers were HDFC Bank, TVS Suzuki and IDBI. The major losers were Tata Power, IFCI, SBI-N, IPCL and Arvind mills.

UNI