The Hindu : Business : Sensex goes into a tailspin, drops 112 points

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

Business

Business

Sensex goes into a tailspin, drops 112 points

Commuters walk under an electronic board displaying the BSE index at Churchgate station in Mumbai on Monday, as the market closed 112 points down. — Photo: Paul Noronha

MUMBAI, JAN. 10. The Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index today once again went into a tailspin after a smart recovery last weekend, ending 112 points down to nearly a one-month low at 6308.54 in high volatility on late selling spree by hedge funds and operators.

The market, however, had shown signs of an upward trend before the midsession in extremely volatile movements on selective buying support from domestic institutions.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened higher at 6440.33 and later fluctuated in a range of 6469.09 and 6286.85 before ending the day at 6308.54 against last Friday's close of 6420.46, a net fall of 111.92 points or 1.74 per cent.

Foreign institutional investors were believed to be heavy sellers in blue chip stocks ahead of announcements of third quarter financial results in the next couple of days, forcing operators and retailers to unload sizable positions.

The IT sector bore the brunt of selling triggered by fears of disappointing working results by IT bellwether Infosys Technologies, which will announce its third quarter results on January 12. Heavyweighted counters such as Tata Motors, Infosys Technologies, ITC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Wipro, Satyam Computer, Tata Steel, RIL Maruti Udyog, Hindalco, GACL, Bharti Tele-Ventures, Grasim and Dr. Reddy's suffered sharp setbacks due to heavy selling pressure from FIIs.

The market had recovered by 53 points last Friday after a 284-point plunge in two days on January 5 and 6.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices moved upwards to $45.65 a barrel at midday in Asian trading.

The broad-based BSE-100 index dropped by 53.87 points to 3424.08. The volume of business was relatively low at Rs. 2,141.66 crores against Rs. 2,224.71 crores last Friday. RIL remained the most active scrip having clocked the highest turnover of Rs. 116.86 crores followed by Infosys (Rs. 90.09 crores), SBI (Rs. 85.67 crores), Petronet (Rs. 68.34 crores) and Tata Steel (Rs. 65.87 crores). The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted down at 851.28 and 321.97 against 861.70 and 327.32 respectively.

The BSE-500 declined by 27.86 points to 2678.95 and the Dollex-30 to 1176.58 from 1202.65. In the specified group, 114 including 26 index-based scrips registered sharp to moderate losses.

— PTI

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