Shares Lose Sheen On Lack Of Institutional Support

Lack of speculative support led to stock prices remaining depressed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) yesterday. According to brokers apart from lack of speculative buying, absence of domestic institutions from the market also led to dull trading activity.

The dealers said most of the blue chips shares tended to drift lower as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) stayed away from the market preferring to adopt a wait-and-watch attitude till the end of the Lok Sabha elections. According to a fund manager with a leading FII, fear of further depreciation of the rupee, coupled reports of dip in exports also kept the FIIs away.

 

The 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 3,359.47, moved in a narrow band between 3,345.34 and 3,371.61 and closed at 3,348.35, a loss of 18.35 points from the last close of 3,366.70. The BSE-100 declined by 7.16 points to close at 1,441.71 from the last close of 1,448.88. The BSE-200 was lower at 320.32 and the Dollex at 137.70 from the last close of 321.69 and 138.2, respectively.

Among the scrips that moved up were ACC by Rs 3 at Rs 370, Tata Tea by Rs 4 at Rs 412, Telco by Rs 8 at Rs 233. Among the stocks that declined were HLL by Rs 12 at Rs 1,411, Excel at Rs 186 (-Rs 13), Grasim at Rs 268 (-Rs 14), SmithKline Beecham at Rs 362, down by Rs 6.

In A group 11 scrips touched their 52-week low while in the B1 and B2 group the figure stood at 50 scrips and 64 scrips. In the B1 group 11 scrips touched the 52-week high. In the cash scrips Aptech fell by Rs 34 to close at Rs 600. Below expectation results was cited as the main reason, though the company posted a rise in net profit by Rs 20 crore. The total turnover on the BOLT system was Rs 660.18 crore, with ITC leading at Rs 180.67 crore, Tata Tea at Rs 113.71 crore, Castrol at Rs 67.88 crore, Telco at Rs 47.33 crore and Reliance at Rs 47.03 crore. Our Financial Bureau