The Hindu : Business : Sensex drops 62 points

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

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Business

Sensex drops 62 points

MUMBAI: The stock market on Tuesday beat a hasty retreat pulling the Sensex down by 62 points after a brief overnight price rally as operators resorted to unloading of long positions despite consistent purchases by mutual funds.

Rising to the intra-day high of 6568.61 at early stages of trading, the BSE benchmark 30-share index later turned weak and dropped to the day's low 6449.98 before ending at 6466.00 against yesterday's close of 6528.03, a net fall of 62.03 points.

Sentiment was adversely affected by reports that high global crude prices and the government's decision to disallow a retail price hike have hit profitability of oil companies.

Meanwhile, coming down strongly on those involved in May 17, 2004 market crash, the SEBI on Tuesday barred UBS Securities Asia Ltd, an FII, and associates from issuing participatory notes (offshore derivative instruments) for underlying Indian securities for one year even as UBS said it might appeal against the Indian capital market watchdog's order. UBS and associates are prohibited from renewing or rolling over the ODIs already issued against the positions held by them in the Indian securities market for one year, SEBI whole-time member, G. Anantharaman, said in his order.

Domestic financial institutions seemed to be buyers, albeit selectively, in key stocks, brokers said. Local funds reported a hefty net investments of Rs. 286.35 crores on May 13, taking the total net purchases to over Rs. 948 crores last week.

However, foreign institutional investors remained net sellers to the tune of Rs. 44.60 crores last Friday. — PTI

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