Sensex continues downward march

Mumbai, Aug 11: Stock markets continued their downward march pushing the benchmark Sensex further down by over 61 points in lacklustre act...

Mumbai, Aug 11: Stock markets continued their downward march pushing the benchmark Sensex further down by over 61 points in lacklustre activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today on sustained selling pressure from speculators as also in the absence of any support from institutional investors.

With foreign institutional investors (FIIs), the principal driving force, withdrawn from the market, operators preferred to square up their outstanding positions in view of the last day of the current settlement. FII reportedly adopted a wait-and-watch policy in the light of sliding Indian rupee that crashed to an all-time low of 46.07/08 per dollar during early trade.

Infotech stocks were at the receiving end as speculators lightened their commitments in these sectors in line with the negative FII activity, dealers said. The sentiment was also affected by a sharp fall of about 94 points in the Nasdaq Composite Index last night.

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Sensex which remained in negative territory throughout, opened moderately lower at 4236.55 and later moved in a narrow range of 4250.63 and 4176.47 before closing at 4192.00 as against yesterday’s close of 4253.23, netting a loss of 61.23 points or 1.44 per cent. The BSE-100 index eased further by 17.85 points to 2092.83 from previous close of 2110.68.

However, cement shares attracted good interest from financial institutions which were reportedly net buyers in ACC, Grasim, GACL, L&T and Madras Cement. In the specified group, 112 counters including 20 index-based shares registered substantial losses while only 28 showed moderate gains.

Himachal Futuristic dropped by 63.75 to 1442.15. Infosys Tech was down by 34.35 at 7255.45, Zee Telefilms by 19.60 at 380.25, Satyam Computer by 14.10 at 470.15, Global Tele by 30.20 at 946.65, BHEL by 3.80 at 112.75, Colgate by 10.50 at 162.75, Dr Reddy by 27.45 at 1099.55, HLL by 8.30 to 232.40, ITC by 3.90 at 765.65, M&M By 6.70 at 173.25, NIIT by 23.70 at 1595.10, TELCO by 2.10 to 90.30 and TISCO by 3.25 at 107.25.

Dealers say that the supply of stocks at higher levels is still continuing and this is the most worrying factor. “The market is unable to sustain higher levels,” said a dealer with a domestic brokerage. However, according to an analyst, the market is dipping with high volumes and soon the market might be in the over-sold zone.

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On Friday, total turnover on the BSE was at Rs 4239 crore while on NSE it was Rs 4738 crore. The number of advances stood at 559, and the number of declines stood at 918. Around 182 stocks remained unchanged.

With sustained supply of paper, values remained under pressure for a major part of the day. Barring few, almost all the software stocks showed a negative close. Pentamedia, and DSQ Soft dipped 8 per cent but recovered in the end. HFCL, Infosys, Silverline, and Aptech also showed a negative close. Other stocks like HLL, ITC, MTNL, and ICICI also showed a negative close. Among the pivotals, ACC was the only counter which attracted buying interest and gained 4 per cent. Reliance showed a weak trend, and closed marginally higher.

For the Sensex, the fall was mainly on account of HLL which dipped 3 per cent. ICICI, MTNL also made their contribution. The weakness in the new economy counters was exposed to some extent on Friday as a number of these scrips failed to touch their previous close. As a BSE broker pointed out, the intra-day high for most of the frontline infotech scrips was lower than their Thursday close or at best just above that mark. “This shows that there is still weakness in the ICE sector counters and in the absence of any drivers, they might witness another sharp fall over the next week,” said the broker.