Brisk deals in RIL even as Sensex records minor losses

MUMBAI, OCT. 1. Reliance Industries remained in the forefront, attracting brisk activity even as the Sensex closed in the negative territory in narrowly mixed activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on buying support alternated by stray offerings by operators.

The BSE sensitive index opened on a promising note at 2817.74 but later reacted negatively in the absence of any fresh investments by foreign institutional investors, dipping to the day's low of 2773.03 before ending the session at 2795.30 against last Friday's close of 2811.60, a net fall of 16.30 points. The BSE- 100 index also eased by 9.53 points to 1302.97 from 1312.50.

Select cement stocks also came under fresh onslaught and key counters such as ACC and Grasim suffered sharp losses due to selling pressure from institutional investors.

Reliance Industries continued to get fairly good support from interested quarters but for occasional bouts of selling by retail investors, who availed themselves of the opportunity to book profits at the higher levels.

The FIIs, who have turned extremely cautious and were selective in their investments after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., reportedly made small sales as also purchases in a few counters.

Had it not been for smart to moderate gains by the top heavyweights such as ITC, Hindustan Lever and Infosys Technologies, the BSE barometer would have fallen further substantially.

Of the total volume of business of Rs. 864.43 crores, RIL alone clocked a turnover of Rs. 222.29 crores followed by Wipro (Rs. 89.21 crores), Infosys (Rs. 70.88 crores), HCL Technologies (Rs. 48.13 crores) and Digital Global (Rs. 40.83 crores).

In the specified group, 123 including 17 index-based counters registered sharp to moderate losses while 47 others finished with gains.

- PTI

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Trade gap widens in April-Aug.
Next     : Honda sales up in Sept.