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Speculative selling pushes Sensex down 47 points

Pivotals lost sharply today following speculative selling in almost all prime counters at the Bombay Stock Exchange, pushing the Sensex down 47 points.

Players preferred to square off their long-term positions owing to lack of a clear indication on the Budget proposals.

The possibility of a service tax had affected info-tech stocks in earlier sessions. The market was also unsure of any revival package for the textile and steel industries, which has been discussed in recent days, a senior dealer at a leading brokerage house said.

The info-tech counters witnessed a mixed trend, while pharmaceutical and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) shares suffered moderate losses on selling pressure.

Very few counters, like Citicorp Securities, Reliance, Ion Exchange, and Digital Equipment, could register impressive gains.

Reflecting the bearish mood, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 3284.21 points, touched the day's high of 3288.18 points, fell to a low of 3228.94 and closed at 3233.86 points, a net loss of 47.43 points from yesterday's closing of 3281.29 points.

The market opened at 0930 IST and closed at 1400 IST in view of the weekly badla (forward) trading session, which is being held immediately after market hours following tomorrow's Budget trading session.

Analysts were of the view that the annualised badla rates are likely to come down to 26 per cent as against last week's 34 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index declined by 19.50 points to 1435.09 as against the previous close of 1455.81 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices eased by 4.41 and 1.73 points to 332.36 and 130.23 points as against 336.77 and 131.96 points, respectively.

The total turnover on the BSE rose sharply to Rs12,202.1 million compared to yesterday's Rs10,523.9 million.

Pentafour Software stood first in the turnover list, registering trades worth Rs1727.3 million, followed by ITC (Rs1077.1 million), Satyam Computers (Rs972.3 million), Reliance (Rs918.7 million), and Zee Telefilms (Rs684.2 million).

Other actively traded counters were Tata Tea (Rs517.5 million), Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (Rs317.5 million), Digital Equipment (Rs293.5 million), State Bank of India (Rs272 million), TELCO (Rs261 million), Glaxo (Rs252.5 million), L&T (Rs194 million), ACC (Rs181.5 million) and MTNL (Rs177.1 million).

Market analysts said steel and textiles shares could benefit if the government announces some kind of protection like an anti-dumping duty.

Among the gainers, cement giant ACC rose Rs16 to Rs1,097, Bajaj Auto Rs14.50 to Rs481, Hindalco Rs1.25 to Rs445, Satyam Computers Rs15 to Rs920 and Reliance Rs0.20 to Rs139.40.

The losers were BHEL, which lost Rs6.40 to drop to Rs235.60, Cadbury (Rs25.50 to Rs539.75), Dabur India (Rs29 to Rs567), Glaxo (Rs31.25 to Rs690), Hero Honda (Rs9 to Rs671), IPCL (Rs1.30 to Rs122.70), ITC (Rs44.25 to Rs775), Mahindras (Rs2.40 to Rs237.50), Nestle (Rs15 to Rs455), Novartis (Rs8.25 to Rs882.50), SBI (Rs1.80 to Rs147.20), TELCO (Rs4.20 to Rs182), and TISCO (Rs0.40 to Rs125).

UNI

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