The Hindu : Equities suffer setback

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 25, 2003

Business

Business

Equities suffer setback

MUMBAI, NOV. 24. After a promising start, equities suffered a marked setback, pushing the Sensex down by over 16 points at close in erratic movements on the Bombay Stock Exchange here today due to selling pressure from operators. However, select index-based counters such as Tata Motors, Tisco, Dr. Reddy's Lab, HPCL, L&T and Ranbaxy scored smart gains mitigating the Sensex's downslide.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened moderately higher at 4852.12 and later fluctuated irregularly between 4858.43 and 4803.80 before ending at 4822.15 against last Friday's close of 4838.54, a net loss of 16.39 points. However, the broad-based BSE-100 index edged up to 2484.77 from 2483.48.

Though operators were optimistic about the future trend on the back of net investments by foreign institutional investors in the concluding sessions of last week, speculators preferred to square up positions ahead of expiry of November contract in Futures and Options on Thursday, market sources said.

Net purchases of Rs. 138 crores by FIIs on Thursday after a slowdown for a few days, injected confidence among investors that the FIIs would not withdraw large amount of funds from Indian markets, as anticipated earlier. The market was well supported by net purchases by local funds during last week. Heavyweights such as HLL, Infosys, RIL, and BHEL recorded sharp falls. — PTI

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