Sensex down 120 points on FII selling

MUMBAI, MAY 10. A fresh sell-off in infotech, communication and entertainment (ICE) stocks, took a heavy toll in share values on the Bombay Stock Exchange today, which cut-short the overnight brief rally and pushed the Sensex down by 120.09 points to close at 4458.40.

Heavy offloading by foreign institutional investors in the ICE sector was the main factor behind the sharp fall in share prices after Tuesday's relatively firm trend.

A sustained downtrend in the Nasdaq composite index for the last two days also dampened sentiment. The slump in the rupee value to historic-low of 44.05/08 and reports of drought in five States, said to be the worst in 100 years, further aggravated the situation, dealers said.

The benchmark index opened slightly higher at 4593.39 and thereafter gradually dipped to a low of 4449.89 before closing at 4458.40 against yesterday's close of 4578.49. The BSE-100 index too dropped by 60.67 points to 2260.94.

The start of the new account on the National Stock Exchange also could not prevent the fall, as operators preferred to wait for the current situation to tide-over before making fresh purchases and enlarging their commitments, a dealer felt.

The FIIs were reported to be net sellers in their favourite counters such as Global Telesystems, Himachal Futuristic, Zee Telefilms, Infosys Technologies, SSI, NIIT, Satyam Computer, Wipro and a few others.

In contrast to the distinctly depressed trend, shares, which were transferred to demat rolling settlement from physical segment from May 8, showed impressive gains and a host of them closed at the upper price band due to shortage of floating stocks.

Zee Telefilms finished down Rs. 84.60 or 12 per cent at Rs. 620.80 on heavy profit-booking, despite good working results. Out of 30 index-based scrips, 24 suffered sharp to moderate losses while only BSES, Colgate, ITC and Nestle showed marginal gains and two closed unchanged.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted down at 483.54 and 184.30 against 495.33 and 188.88 respectively. The BSE-500 also declined by 35.85 points to 1466.52.

Satyam Computer topped the highest traded security with a turnover of Rs. 566.12 crores of the total volume of business of Rs. 3,231.18 crores and the share price closed at Rs. 3,169, down by Rs. 183.20.

Other top traded scrips were Zee Telefilms (Rs. 427.77 crores), Himachal Futuristic (Rs. 323.04 crores), Global Telesystems (Rs. 211.16 crores) and Infosys (Rs. 202.74 crores).

- PTI

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