MUMBAI, JULY 13: Bears made a late entry and put an end to a bull party in a highly volatile stock market on Thursday. A late selling spree in infotech, communication and entertainment (ICE) counters by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), domestic funds and local investors pulled down the benchmark Sensex by 83.48 points to 4880.80 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Sensex, in fact, showed a whopping intra-day fall of 178 points as rumours that the SEBI was planning to impose fresh margins in some highly speculative shares triggered the selling spree. Reflecting the volatile movements, Sensex resumed strong at 4994.92 following firm Nasdaq advices and rallied smartly to cross the magical 5,000-mark to the day's peak of 5058.90. But late offloading, which emerged after midsession, by FIIs took its toll and Sensex dipped to a low of 4878.45 before closing at 4880.80 as against yesterday's close of 4964.28, a sharp loss of 83.48 points. During the last one hour of trading on the BSE, rumours surfaced that Sebi is considering imposition of additional margins on seven leading stocks including Infosys, Satyam, Zee, Global and Himachal. This unnerved the operators who, over the last few days, had built-up substantial long positions and they pressed the sell button. The fall in Sensex could be gauged by the heavy decline in index's heavy-weighted shares like Infosys Tech, Satyam Computer, Zee Telefilms, ITC, Reliance and SBI. A weak trend in stock markets in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore also aided the downtrend. While the first half of the session belonged to bulls, bears took over in the second half. Taking a cue from Nasdaq, where the Nasdaq Composite Index shot up by over 143 points last night, the market resumed on a strong note with majority of ICE shares showing handsome gains. Some FIIs later sold shares of Infosys, Satyam Computer, Zee Telefilms, Wipro, SSI and NIIT and made small purchases in select pharma and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). During the first half of Thursday's trading, it was mainly due to sustained buying in the key-index based counter that the Sensex managed to remain above 5000 points. HLL and ITC remained in great demand. Reliance also remained firm. However, the sentiment turned extremely bearish in the second half. The fall was led by Satyam Computer which hit the lower circuit of 8 per cent. Dealers said FIIs were re-adjusting their portfolios by selling ICE shares and buying FMCG and pharma scrips. Of the 140 specified shares, 106 showed widespread losses while 32 closed in positive territory and two held steady.Satyam Computer dipped by Rs 251.85 to Rs 3088.55. HFCL was down by Rs 82.40 at Rs 1352.65, Zee Telefilms by Rs 24.45 at Rs 478.85, Infosys Tech by Rs 427.80 at Rs 7964.50, Global Tele by Rs 82.65 at Rs 1178.40, ITC by Rs 13.65 at Rs 831.45, NIIT by Rs 80.25 at Rs 2144.55, Reliance by Rs 4.40 at Rs 365.25, SBI by Rs 3.25 at Rs 226.75, SSI by Rs 107.60 at Rs 2941.25 and Wipro by Rs 146.55 at Rs 2881.50. With Sebi's FII investment figures showing a net outflow of Rs 145 crore for Wednesday, brokers feel there are rooms for another 200 to 300 point downside. And the visible weakness in index heavyweights like Infosys and Satyam is adding to market players problems. ``And old economy stocks alone cannot hold the Sensex in the positive territory for long,'' said a dealer with a domestic broking house. ``We are looking at a Sensex level of 4500 over the next few days,'' added another dealer.
