The Hindu : Business : Early gains not held on BSE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 19, 2004

Business

Business

Early gains not held on BSE

MUMBAI, OCT. 18. Reacting to uncertainty over the post of Maharashtra Chief Minister, the Bombay Stock Exchange turned weak after a strong start and ended marginally down by 6.90 points as domestic investors resorted to selling pressure in the second half of the session.

Selling was also attributed to spiralling international crude oil prices that soared past an all time high of $55 a barrel around noon.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index, which had risen to the intra-day high of 5727.96 during morning trading, later met with a strong resistance and fell to the day's low of 5670.37 before ending at 5679.83 against last Friday's close of 5686.73, a net fall of 6.90 points.

Brokers said investors turned cautious fearing political uncertainty after both the alliance partners Congress and NCP staked claim for the post of the Maharashtra Chief Minister's post after the assembly elections results.

Foreign institutional investors, who reported net investments of Rs. 410.60 crores in the first three sessions last week, were believed to be buyers in select key counters. The market remained bullish on the back of continued flow of excellent corporate results and the government's decision to temporarily defer upward revision in petrol price. Blue chip counters including Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Satyam Computer, Zee Telefilms, ITC, ONGC, HPCL, L&T, SBI, Grasim and Bajaj Auto registered moderate losses.

However, RIL, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank and BHEL scored handsome gains.

The broad-based BSE-100 index moved down by 4.11 points to 3031.44.

PTI

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