
MUMBAI, Aug 14: Industrials continued its downtrend on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) mainly due to end-account considerations and selling pressure by the foreign funds. Sensex lost 21 points. After a better opening spell, pivotals reacted towards the end on profit-taking. The closing rates showed small widespread losses. The volume of business remained thin due to short session.
The session was curtailed to accommodate badla business after 2 pm, in view of tomorrow being a holiday to celebrate Independence day. Share prices showed narrow movements with Sensex moved between 2960.24 points and 3005.44 points, before closing at 2968.75 points with a net loss of 21.47 points as compared to the previous level of 2990.22. The BSE-100 index moved down by 9.19 points to 1325.59 from previous close of 1334.78.
Brokers say the rally was short lived due to lack of speculative support because Friday was the last session of the current settlement. Most of the local business were of squaring-off in nature. Thesudbued trend was also due to selling by the FIIs mainly in ITC, Hindustan Lever, Zee Telefilms, Cadbury and others. The support from domestic institutions also was not aggressive enough to stabilise market or inject the confidence into the players.
The volume of business was very low at Rs 613.72 crore from yesterday’s turnover of Rs 983.64 crore. ITC continued to be the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs 98.98 crore. ITC lost Rs 2 at Rs 582.50, Satyam Rs 5.25 at Rs 469.75, Zee Telefilms Rs 10 at Rs 544.75 and Reliance Rs 2.20 at Rs 120.60 on profit taking. Pentafour, SBI, Telco and Tisco also remained subdued.
On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), share prices reacted on fresh selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). After a better start, pivotals lost ground towards the end of the trading session. The S&P CNX Nifty index declined by 8.15 to close at 864.10 as against the last close of 872.25. Shares worth Rs 863.85 crore were transacted. The day witnessed 418 securities rise, 469 falland 93 hold steady with 28 securities hitting their price bands.