Business

Samvat 2064 starts on a subdued note

— PHOTO: AFP

SPECIAL TRADING: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark 30-share Sensex is displayed on a digital stock ticker as the building is illuminated during the special trading session, Muhurat, on Friday.

MUMBAI: Usher Samvat 2064, the glitter was lost as the benchmark Sensex closed below the 19000-mark. Investors were greeted with lot of bad news around the world: While global oil prices were reaching new peaks, the stock indices were falling in Asian as well as European markets taking cues from the U.S., where almost everyday one bank or an investment firm was reporting losses due to the defaults in its credit markets.

However, Samvat 2063 was a spectacular year for the investors as equities gave a return of 51.45 per cent.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) lost 151.33 points or 0.79 per cent at 18907.60 compared to the previous close of 19058.93. On Thursday, the Sensex suffered a loss of 230.90 points. However, the midcap and smallcap stocks made gains. The BSE midcap index gained 67.85 points at 8013.63 and the smallcap 145.97 points at 9756.88.

Among Asian markets, China’s Shanghai Composite Index closed on Friday with a weekly loss of 8 per cent, its biggest weekly loss since May 1997. It ended down by 0.27 per cent at 5315.540, its lowest close since September 14. It lost 4.85 per cent on Thursday, its largest daily drop in four months.

The dollar hit record lows against the euro and the yen on Friday as the U.S. Federal Reserve warned that mortgage defaults might rise and U.S. faces twin risks of slowdown and inflation.

The dollar also tumbled to a 26-year low against the British pound sterling.

Oil prices also are reigning high at around $95 a barrel. As a continuation of the sub-prime losses in the U.S., Wachovia Corp stated that it had incurred about $1.1 billion of losses on mortgage securities in October and expected loan loss provisions of up to $600 million.

PTI reports:

Selling in heavyweights such as Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and SBI pulled down the Sensex even as the most valued PSU firm ONGC, telecom giant Reliance Communications, State-run power giant NTPC as well as pharma majors Ranbaxy and Cipla gained value.

At one point of time, the index had lost over 300 points on heavy selling in heavyweights such as RIL and ICICI Bank, but some buying towards the fag end of the session in these stocks pared the day’s loss by more than a half.

This is the first negative close for the Sensex in a Muhurat trading, observed every Diwali evening, in the past seven years.

The barometer index had last closed in the negative territory in a Muhurat trading in 2000.

Since the last Diwali, the bourses have added close to Rs. 30 trillion to the investors’ wealth, measured in terms of market capitalisation of all the listed companies.

However, there has been selling pressure on the bourses since the past few days, ever since the Sensex recorded its life-time high of 20238.16 on October 30 in intra-day trading.

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