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Buyers keep off market; Sensex slips by 21 points to 3215.35

Pivotals continued to decline at the Bombay Stock Exchange due to lack of follow-up support from institutional investors coupled with squaring up by operators on the last day of current settlement today.

Barring few scrips from the sectors of infotech, pharma and fast moving consumer goods, there was hardly any buying support from institutional investors, a chief dealer at the leading institutional brokerage house said. He added that the market witnessed a subdued trend due to continuous decline in the index-based stocks for the last couple of days.

Leading BSE brokers attributed the downtrend to the ongoing political uncertainty and lack of positive announcements from the political front. The marketmen also turned cautious in view of the annual Budget and announcements of economic survey in the next week.

Mirroring the bearish phase, the 300-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 3241.30 points, touched the day's high of 3246.76 points, fell to the day's low of 3204.50 points before closing at 3215.35 points, showing a net loss of 21.07 points as against the previous close of 3236.42 points.

Among the pivotals, Tisco, ITC, Godfrey Phillips, Hindustan Ink, Pfizer reported marginal gains in spite of the downtrend on good buying support from investors, dealers said.

The broad-based BSE-100 index eased by 11.20 points to 1412.09 points as against the previous close of 1423.29 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices dropped by 1.59 and 1.05 points to 327.38 and 128.34 points from the previous close of 329.97 and 129.39 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BSE reported during the day was Rs 14.77 billion.

Pentafour Software registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.97 billion followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.31 billion, Infosys Technologies Rs 593.8 million and Tata Tea Rs 545.8 million.

Other actively traded counters were Reliance (Rs 495.1 million), Zee Telefilm (Rs 475.9 million, Telco (Rs 472.1 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 460.2 million), Castrol India (Rs 417.5 million), SBI (Rs 342.2 million), Tisco (Rs 263.3 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 252.9 million) and NIIT (Rs 240 million).

Among the issues, ACC dropped by Rs 28 to Rs 1000, Bajaj Auto Re 1 to Rs 510, BHEL Rs 3.70 to Rs 239.80, Cadbury's Rs 6.50 to Rs 566, Castrol Rs 12.50 to Rs 812.75, Glaxo Rs 12.50 to Rs 625.25, Hero Honda Rs 5 to Rs 611.50, Hindalco Rs 7 to Rs 466.75, ITC Rs 2 to Rs 815.50, L&T Rs 6.20 to Rs 172.30, Novartis Rs 2 to Rs 840, Pentafour Software Rs 12.50 to Rs 839, Reliance Rs 3.60 to Rs 121.90, Satyam Computers Rs 6.75 to Rs 860.25, SBI Rs 3 to Rs 152, Telco Rs 5.80 to Rs 187.80, Zee Telefilms Rs 19 to Rs 548.

The few gainers were Dr Reddy's which rose by Rs 18.50 to Rs 582, Infosys Technologies shot up by Rs 366 to Rs 4975, NIIT Rs 52.75 to Rs 2217.50 and Tata Steel Rs 1.30 to Rs 118.40.

UNI

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