The Hindu : Initial gains not held on BSE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003

Business

Business

Initial gains not held on BSE

MUMBAI DEC. 30. Heavy bouts of profit-selling at the fag-end of the trading pulled down the Sensex from the day's peak of 5920.76 and drove it to a close of 5791.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday, a fall of 5.48 points. Foreign institutional investors, the main driving force behind the current rally, appeared to be exiting from the market ahead of the year-end, bargaining for huge profits to repatriate to their country of origin, dealers said.

The early rally were partly attributed to overnight firm advices from Wall Street where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index and the Dow Jones industrial average rose by 33.34 points and 125.33 points last night respectively, yesterday. The loss in the Sensex would have been much more pronounced had there not been a sharp rise in heavyweights such as Reliance, Infosys and ONGC, another dealer said.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened firm at 5831.78 against yesterday's close of 5797.33 and gyrated between 5920.76 and 5762.60 before concluding at 5791.85, a fall of 5.48 points. Depicting the firm trend in second-line stocks, the broadbased BSE-100 index improved further by 9.64 points to 3044.78.

However, ONGC and GAIL were in the limelight on news that the Government has decided to sell its 10 per cent equity stake in these companies.

PTI

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