Reliance Hits 18-Mth Lows On Bse, Nse

A massive sell order at the Reliance counter by a foreign fund to the tune of nearly 20-25 lakh shares sent the scrip price into a tailspin on major bourses yesterday. The scrip crashed to the lower end of the circuit filter at Rs 105.90 on the BSE and Rs 105.55 on the NSE, both new 18 month lows.

It finally closed at Rs 110.40 on the BSE, down Rs 4.70 from the previous close and at Rs 109.50 on the NSE, a loss of Rs 4.95.

Volumes at the counter spurted sharply with 95 lakh shares changing hands on the BSE and 1.5 crore shares on the NSE. This is substantially higher than the normal daily volumes of 40-60 lakh shares being witnessed for the past few months.

Foreign funds have been regular sellers at the counter for the last couple of weeks, offloading almost 6-8 lakh shares everyday, players said. However the sheer enormity of the sell order took the market by surprise with various rumours doing the rounds.

The scrip fluctuated within a

band of Rs 11 during the day, from the day's high of Rs 117 levels to the day's low of Rs 106 levels.

Players said that with the GDRs quoting at a discount, foreign players have been using the opportunity to arbitrage between the local and GDR markets. As of yesterday the GDRs are still reported to be quoting at a discount of almost 7 per cent to the local market price.

The markets opened the day on a strong note, however started sliding rapidly following the sell order at the Reliance counter. The sensex crashed to an intra day low of 2838.99 from the day's high of 2919.51. It finally recovered to 2884.59 at close, up 16.60 over the previous day's close. The NSE-50 closed at 838.30, up 5.85 points over the previous close.