MUMBAI, APR 19: Despite the continued upsurge on Wall Street, pivotals on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) once again turned week today pushing Sensex down by another 80 points in the wake of sustained bear hammering. With Wednesday's fresh losses, Sensex has fallen by over 875 points from April 12 onwards, making a new record of consistent fall in straight five sessions. A second successive rise in Nasdaq Composite Index by over 250 points and Dow Jones Industrial Average by about 190 points last evening failed to cheer the market and most of the intital gains were wiped out due to late distress selling. Sensex (BSE sensitive index) which spurted to the day's high of 4901.50 at early stages, later tumbled to a low of 4571.12 before closing at 4665.81 with a net loss of 79.66 points compared to yesterday's close of 4745.47. The BSE-100 Index also slipped by 65.38 points to 2500.81 from the previous close of 2566.19. Brokers said that the sentiment was better mainly due to encouraging corporate results and fresh gain in Nasdaq index. However, the bear operators once again hammered the prices in spite of favourable factors like the 41 per cent growth in the net profit of RIL and a second successive rise in Nasdaq Composite Index. Key information technology shares lost ground after rising strongly, but select cyclicals were firm. Dealers said lack of direction and worries over volatility in global markets has dampened investor enthusiasm, especially in the technology stocks. The redemption pressure on mutual funds which were reportedly sellers in majority of IT stocks also unnerved operators. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), however, made selective purchases in NIIT, Satyam Computer and some others. In the specified group, nine scrips including four index heavy-weights hit the lower end of circuit filter. But Aptech was locked in upper price band at close. "Nasdaq's volatility has affected sentiment. Investors are fearing another sell off on the Nasdaq," an analyst with a equities division of a private bank, said. Technical analysts see the market near its short term support levels. "The support for the index is at 4,515. The market could bounce back for a short rally; but a spurt above the resitance levels of 4,900 to 5,000 will be possible only if there is a big recovery in technology stocks," said a dealer at brokerage C Mackertich. Satyam Computer was the most active share and clocked the highest turnover of Rs 511.84 crore of the total volume of business of Rs 2615.54 crore. The scrip eased by Rs 18.15 to Rs 3440.05. Infosys Tech nosedived by Rs 628.55 to Rs 7228.95, HFCL by Rs 86.75 to Rs 998.25, Zee Telefilms by Rs 68.10 to Rs 783.45, BHEL by Rs 8.95 to Rs 103.10, Dr Reddy's by Rs 41 to Rs 1359, HPCL by Rs 10.30 to Rs 118.65, Ranbaxy by Rs 41.50 to Rs 625.50 and TISCO by Rs 1.25 to Rs 115.75. However, RIL showed handsome gains at Rs 315.20, Grasim at Rs 375, HLL at Rs 2494, NIIT at Rs 2102 and TELCO at Rs 124.
