Modest fall in Sensex

MUMBAI, JULY 19. Select key counters such as Infosys Technologies, L&T, Dr. Reddy's Lab and ITC saved the Sensex from a major setback though it closed in the negative territory on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting a mixed pattern of trading, the BSE sensitive showed extremely narrow movements between 3380.27 and 3352.12 before closing at 3370.93 against yesterday's close of 3383.41, a modest fall of 12.48 points. The BSE-100 index eased by 8.87 points to 1590 from 1598.87.

The market ignored positive corporate news that the cement industry is expected to grow by a compounded annual growth rate of around 8 per cent between 2001-02 and 2003-04 followed by announcements of excellent first quarter results by Larsen & Toubro and of recommendations of a 45 per cent dividend by MTNL.

Close on the heels of encouraging performance for Q1 by the cement conglomerate ACC, the cement business helped L&T to post a massive rise in its net profit at Rs. 65.07 crores for the first quarter against Rs. 18.88 crores in the corresponding period last fiscal.

However, retail investors and traders were not interested in any fresh deals in the prevailing restrictions in the rolling system and ban on carry forward trading. Foreign institutional investors too have turned pessimistic as a result of confusing signals in the U.S. economy, which is still not showing any improvement in spite of six successive interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

After a strong rally on Tuesday, the Nasdaq composite index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a sharp downturn yesterday.

While Digital Equipment announced encouraging Q1 results with the net profit spurting to Rs. 19.20 crores from Rs. 5.76 crores in the corresponding period last year, NIIT came out of with dismal Q1 performance with its net profit dropping by 93.22 per cent to Rs. 5.29 crores from Rs. 78.02 crores in the same period last year.

Among the 15 gainers in index-based stocks, the heavyweights such as BHEL, Dr. Reddy's Lab, Infosys, ITC and L&T scored handsome gains mitigating the downslide.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted down at 350.51 and 123.74 against 352.40 and 124.54 respectively. The BSE-500 dipped by 6.25 points to 1029.29 from 1035.54.

The volume of business remained low at Rs. 915.84 crores. Infosys were the top traded scrip with a turnover of Rs. 129.25 crores followed by Wipro (Rs. 114.82 crores), Digital Equipment (Rs. 114.62 crores), Dr. Reddy's (Rs. 92.08 crores) and Satyam Computer (Rs. 64.93 crores).

- PTI

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