Sensex trims major intra-day loss

The BSE-30 shares Sensitive index opened on a subdued note and dropped below the 4200-mark, 172-points lower from the previous close of 4372.22, fell further by registering intra-day loss of over 260 points by touching the day’s low of 4109.66. The Sensex later bounced back on FIIs support and touched the day’s high of 4394.58 before finishing at 4335.29, showing a moderate fall of 36.93 points from the previous close.

Among index stocks, Infosys Technologies fell 2.18 per cent to Rs 7,700 Satyam Computer Services 4.94 per cent to Rs 2,610.10 and NIIT 8.57 per cent Rs 1,764.Refinery shares bucked the trend on value based buying. Hindustan Petroleum rose 7.33 per cent to Rs 110.50 and Bharat Petroleum 5.68 per cent to Rs 163.70. Pharma shares came in the limelight on the announcement that the government was giving a 10-year tax holiday to R&D Based pharma companies and Biotech firms.

Meanwhile, worried over the extreme volatility in the markets, leading stock brokers pointed out mutual funds and local domestic institutional investors for dampening the market sentiments. They said that the mutual funds reportedly pressing sales in several counters while the domestic institutional investors also indulged in selling at key counters resulting into considerable eroision in share prices.

The major international markets followed the Nasdaq trend and reported sharp declines today. The Nasdaq composite index fell by about 173 points on Tuesday. The Hangseng in Hongkong and Dow Jones in US followed the trend and reported a decline of 1 per cent and 0.75 per cent on sustained selling pressure from speculators in ICE stocks.

The losers were included Wipro, Mastek, NIIT, VSNL, Global Tele, Gramophone, DSQ Software, Infotech Ent, Aptech, Pentamedia. The VSNL, Gramophone, Hinduja Finance hit the downward circuit filters by registering maximum 12 per cent losses over their previous close.

In the specified group, Sun Pharma and Digital Equipment were locked in the upper end of the circuit filter at the close. Of the total 140 scrips, 74 shares scored impressive gains while 64 registered losses and two held steady.