Selling in ICE counters pulls down Sensex

MUMBAI, JULY 10. A heavy spell of selling in infotech, communication and entertainment (ICE) counters pulled down the Sensex by 38.51 points to close at 4867.43 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today. However, select old economy shares hogged the limelight.

A marginal fall in the Sensex could be attributed to a moderate decline in Zee Telefilms, Infosys Technologies, NIIT, Satyam Computer, L&T, MTNL and Novartis. Smart gains notched by old economy shares such as ITC, Reliance, Telco, Grasim and Nestle, however, cushioned the index loss to minimum level.

Despite a smart upsurge in the Nasdaq composite index by over 62 points last Friday, wary operators offloaded their long positions to play safe ahead of first-quarter working results to be announced on July 11 by two major software bellwethers, Infosys and Satyam Computer. Foreign institutional investors were reportedly booking profits in shares of Satyam Computer, Infosys, NIIT, SSI, Global Telesystems, Himachal Futuristic and few others.

Local institutions and mutual funds also sold infotech scrips besides pressing sales in shares of some Indian companies.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened barely steady at 4908.74 against last Friday's close of 4905.94 and moved in a restricted range of 4920.38 and 4847.45 before recovering partly to close at 4867.43, netting a gain of 0.78 per cent. The broad-based BSE-100 index declined by 15.01 points to 2462.19 from 2477.20.

Even even on the first day of new account, operators preferred to book profits in select software counters and shifted their focus to out-of-favour low priced old-economy shares leading to a smart rise in these share values.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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