Equities suffer further setback

MUMBAI, DEC. 26. Equities suffered a sharp setback pulling the Sensex further down by about 79 points, a fifth fall in a row, on the Bombay Stock Exchange today in the wake of selling pressure from operators as well as foreign funds. The Sensex has fallen by more than 342 points in the last five sessions.

Discounting all positive factors including low international crude oil price that is inter-connected with economy, dealers said speculators seemed helpless in the light of negative stance by FIIs which were generally sellers. The FIIs reportedly made net sales of over Rs. 490 crores in the current month.

There was widespread selling on the BSE in line with tired bull liquidation on the National Stock Exchange which had the last day of the current settlement.

A strong turnaround in the Nasdaq composite index by about 177 points last weekend failed to attract any support because weak advises from London and year-end considerations.

The BSE sensitive index opened better at 3927.51 and rose to a high of 3939.08. However, it reacted later and gradually moved downwards to close at 3826.82 against last Friday's close of 3905.90, showing a net loss of 79.08 points or 2.02 per cent. The BSE-100 index dropped by 48.58 points to 1933.40 from 1981.98.

Software stocks were the main target of selling by FIIs as well as speculators who were long in a few heavy weighted IT scrips.

In the specified group, 111 counters including 24 index based shares registered sharp to moderate losses while 28 others showed gains. The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted down at 416.75 and 148.64 against 426.87 and 152.22 respectively. The BSE-500 slipped by 30.76 points to 1245.17 from 1275.93.

Himachal Futuristic were the most active scrip having clocked the highest turnover of Rs. 1,202.25 crores followed by Global Telesystem (Rs. 931.22 crores), Infosys Technologies (Rs. 707.39 crores), Satyam Computer (Rs. 484.25 crores) and Zee Telefilms (Rs. 272.46 crores).

- PTI

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