Profit Sales Stymie Counters

Profit-taking continued at heavyweight counters pulling the markets down for the second straight day on Thursday.

The Bombay Stock Exchange sensex shed 33.25 points to settle at 3,311.16 points, but off from an intra-day low of 3,307.16.

Brokers said investors were now looking for further improvement in the situation on ground before adding to their exposure.

The breadth was barely positive with gainers just about pipping losers amid brisk trades. On the National Stock Exchange, the S&P CNX Nifty also lost 9.95 points to 1,082.85.

FMCG heavyweight Hindustan Lever came off its intra-day high of Rs 204.70 on reports that its business declined 3 per cent in April 2002. The stock settled 3.24 per cent lower at Rs 195.80.

Other heavyweight counters Reliance Industries (down 0.54 per cent to Rs 284.70), Reliance Petroleum (down 0.59 per cent to Rs 25.35) and ITC (down 0.40 per cent to Rs 608.85) also remained weak on lack of fresh follow-up buying.

Meanwhile, Ranbaxy Laboratories bucked the weak trend and wound up 4.09 per cent higher at Rs 837.65 after a US court barred Canadian drugmaker Apotex from selling a generic form of the antibiotic Ceftin in the US.

Ranbaxy already sells its version of this drug - originally developed by GlaxoSmithKline - in the US.

Meanwhile, Colgate-Palmolive (up 2.97 per cent to Rs 141.95) rose on value buying. However, select public sector unit (PSU) stocks such as Hindustan Petroleum (down 2.18 per cent to Rs 284.70) and MTNL (down 2.29 per cent to Rs 132.15) declined on profit booking. On the other hand, Dredging Corporation of India (down 6.17 per cent to Rs 353.65) declined on reports that the shipping ministry has no immediate plans to divest government stake in the company.

Among technology stocks, Zee Telefilms came off the day's high of Rs 150 to Rs 140 before settling at Rs 140.35, down 3.24 per cent from its Wednesday's close.

Other key technology stocks such as HCL Technologies (down 0.93 per cent to Rs 218.5), Satyam Computer (down 0.72 per cent to Rs 241.60) and Infosys Technologies (down 0.73 per cent to Rs 3,452.60) dropped on selling pressure after a steady opening.

But select frontline stocks remained active. SSI (up 8.28 per cent to Rs 158.85) rose on talks of an important announcement from the company in the near future.

Digital GlobalSoft (up 0.40 per cent to Rs 655) ended flat, coming off the day's high of Rs 693.80 on selling at higher levels.

The Digital stock had risen over 6.30 per cent earlier in the day on reports that the Bangalore-based hardware major may seek shareholders' approval to buy back its shares and to hike the foreign fund investment limit to 49 per cent from 24 per cent.