Demat Deals In Only 3 Scrips On First Day

Mandatory demat trading in eight scrips by institutions got off to a slow start yesterday, with deals being witnessed only on the Reliance Industries, State Bank of India and ICICI counters. No demat trading took place in the Industrial Development Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, GE Shipping, Bank of India and Tata Steel scrips.

SBI topped the list, with 89,600 shares being traded in the demat segment. Reliance followed with 71,900 shares and ICICI was a distant third, with 4,275 shares traded in the demat segment on both bourses.

All the scrips were quoted at a marginally higher premium in the demat form compared with the physical market price.

This had a direct impact on the trading volumes for the eight scrips in the physical market. A decline in trading volumes on the physical side was witnessed, indicating the fear of possible illiquidity in the transitional phase for these stocks.

While IDBI witnessed a trading volume of 3.09 lakh shares on the bourses on Wednesday, only 1.63 lakh of its shares were traded in the physical segment yesterday. Similarly, ICICI saw physical trading in its shares dropping from 16 lakh shares on Wednesday to about 10 lakh shares yesterday.

National Securities Deposi-tory Ltd managing director C B Bhave said there were satisfactory requests for demat on the first day. We hope that trading will pick up in the next few trading sessions, he added. Bhave also apprised the Securities and Exchange Board of India of the developments on the first day.

Meanwhile, stock indices continued to wilt under selling pressure from foreign institutional investors yesterday. The 30-scrip BSE sensex closed at 3365.75, down 35.04 points over the previous close. The NSE-50 closed at 989.65, a loss of 7.9 points over its previous close. Market sources said purchases at lower levels by UTI and LIC towards the close checked a further slide.