BSE downturn continues

Mumbai, April 24: The downtrend continued on the Bombay Stock Exchange BSE as pivotals declined further on emergence of profit booking at higher levels and absence of foreign funds on the last day of settlement today. The Sensex lost another 41 points. After a steady spell share prices declined sharply during the mid-session on brisk unloading but recovered partially thereafter on short covering. The closing rates showed further widespread small to modest losses. The volume remained moderate.The closing undertone appeared weak.

The BSE sensitive index opened at 4088.14, touched the day8217;s high at 4104.98 and a low of 3954.31 before closing at 4050.98 with a modest loss of 41.25 points compared to the previous level of 4092.23. The BSE-100 index lost 25.06 points to 1780.64 from the previous level of 1840.05.

Brokers said that the sentiment was further affacted due to profit taking by the local operators in view of end account considrations. Most of the software scrips encountered one-side selling andhit downward circuit breaker.

On the National Stock Exchange NSE, share prices declined further moderately due to increassed selling pressure. The NSE-50 opened better at 1182.15, but dropped to a low of 1144.85 and closed at 1173.80, showing a fall of 8.30 points from the previous close of 1182.10. The Midcap index fell by 28.65 to close at 1619.20 from the previous close of 1647.85. The total turnover today was Rs 1,726.09 crore. In all 217 securities advanced, 880 declined and 59 remained unchanged. About 163 securities hit their price bands.