Sensex down by 31 pts

MUMBAI, July 21: The sentiment remained weak on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today in view of the continued fluid political situation over the Cauvery water dispute. After a better spell, pivotals declined during the mid-session on selling pressure. The volume of business increased substantially by Rs 89.05 crore to Rs 1072.32 crore. The BSE sensitive index opened at 3385.25, surpassing the 3400-mark and touched the inter-day high at 3417.10. However, on increased selling pressure Sensex dropped to 3329.84, before closing at 3353.30, with a net loss of 31.45 points against the previous close of 3384.75. With this fall Sensex has lost nearly 117 points during last two trading sessions. BSE-100 index lost 12.70 points to 1473.42 from the previous level of 1486.12.

Brokers said that sentiment turned weak after the mid-session due to speculative selling pressure by bull operators. The domestic institutional investors led by UTI made moderate purchases at the fundamentally strong counters. However, theirpurchases could not bring confidence in the market. Pivotal including Telco, Tisco, Reliance, SBI reported further fall on the selling spree by the institutional investors. The last day of trading settlement on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also aided the downtrend, as major market players were busy in squaring up their positions.

On the NSE, pivotals declined further on squaring-off on the last day of the current settlement cycle. The NSE-50 index opened marginally higher at 977.65 but declined to close at 965.50, showing a fall of 11.80 over the last close of 977.30. Midcap index opened at 1461.55 and fell to end at 1449.95, disclosing a fall of 11.35.