Pivotals Decline On Lack Of Institutional Support

Select pivotals declined moderately on the Bombay Stock Exchange yesterday due to bear pressure and lack of support from institutional investors.

Fears of a likely hike in freight rates and an increase in petrol and petroleum products had an adverse impact on the market sentiment. Brokers and investors adopted wait-and-watch attitude before entering into fresh commitments. They are now waiting for the announcement of the Union Budget proposals on February 28.

Reflecting the trend, the BSE sensitive index dropped by 34.04 points to close at 3494.40. The BSE-100 index declined by 12.93 points to 1520.34. The BSE-200 was quoted lower at 337.36 from 339.84 losing 2.48 points and the Dollex was quoted lower at 156.50 from 157.65 previously, dropping 1.15 points.

 

The market opened on a steady note but reacted during mid-session due to lack of speculative support and closed with widespread losses at the bulges. ACC, Bajaj Auto, Colgate, Grasim, Reliance, SBI, Tisco, ITC and L&T all declined substantially on selling pressure.

The total turnover on the Bolt system was Rs 477.74 crore. SBI (new) led the list with a turnover of Rs 189.75 crore followed by Reliance Industries Rs 89.22 crore, ITC Rs 61.38 crore, Tisco Rs 25.77 crore and ACC Rs 20.52 crore.

Meanwhile, the shares of Bank of Baroda (BoB) would be listed and traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange from today.

Leading brokers said that bull operators from Delhi and Calcutta stocks exchanges were main sellers. The FIIIs were absent from the market. However, local speculators were playing at both bouts of selling and buying, which restricted the heavy downfall of capital market.

The total turnover on the screen based BOLT trading system was 479.59 crore.