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Congress politics affects sentiment; Sensex down 20 points to 3283.97

Pivotals declined further at the Bombay Stock Exchange in spite of selective buying interest by institutional investors and operators today.

According to marketmen, the happenings in Parliament affected market sentiments with the Sensex touching a day's low of 3249.02 points after a firm start at 3290.50 points. The last day of the weekly trading cycle at the National Stock Excahnge is also one of the reasons behind the selling spree, they said.

The objection raised by the Congress to the President's rule in Bihar and the adjournment of the Lok Sabha following disruption by the members of Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Morcha also discouraged the marketmen, dealers said.

Select scrips like PSI Data, Digital Equipment from infotech group and Reliance, NOCIL posted considerable gains during the day.

Reflecting the trend, the 30-scrip Sensex opened at 3290.50 points, touched the day's high of 3300.44 points and fell below the psychological barrier of 3300 points and touched the day's low of 3249.02 points, before closing at 3283.97 points against the previous close of 3303.89 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also drifted lower by 12.73 points to 1446.17 points as against the previous close of 1458.90 points.

Total turnover on the BOLT system stood at Rs 15.15 billion. Pentafour Software registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.26 billion, followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.73 billion, Tata Tea Rs 1.30 billion, Reliance Rs 1.25 billion and ITC Rs 1.07 billion.

Other actively traded counters were Glaxo India (Rs 410.6 million), SBI (Rs 406.9 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 375.5 million), IPCL (Rs 361.6 million), Telco (Rs 339.8 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 241.3 million), L&T (Rs 229.2 million), MTNL (Rs 222.8 million), ACC (Rs 214.1 million and Hindustan Lever (Rs 194.8 million).

UNI

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