According to some brokers, the fall in the scrip is on account of a bear cartel operating at the counter. ``The SBI GDR is quoting at a premium of over 25 per cent at $ 9.63 against its current market price of Rs 161.90 which shows that the stock is heavily undervalued and we are likely to see a reversal in the trend very soon,'' says one broker. Somemarketmen are expecting operators to get caught at the counter as the covering will push up the price by Rs 40.

Meanwhile, rumours of UTI having returned to the market as a net seller continued to unnerve market participants. Reflecting the nervous selling at the counters of Reliance, MTNL, SBI and ITC, the Sensex closed at 2,872.48 points, registering a net fall of 44.18 points. However, figures released by both NSE and BSE show that domestic institutions on were net buyers. On BSE, these institutions made a net purchase of Rs 18 crore, while on NSE they bought stocks worth Rs 10 crore. FIIs, on the contrary, sold heavily. They were net sellers to the tune of Rs 14 crore on BSE. On NSE, FIIs sold a huge chunk of stocks worth Rs 45 crore.

The imbalance sale strategy, according to market participants, was on account of the systems failure at BSE. BSE started its BOLT operations only at 11.45 am as against its scheduled time of 10 am.

"Most of the sales had to be routed through the NSE as BSE was closedtill 11.45 on account of systems failure," explained a dealer with an FII brokerage outfit, in the light of the pending orders which needed to be executed before the opening of the GDR markets.

Indian GDRs also continued to be weak during mid-day session on the London bourse. The Skindia GDR index was traded at 532.57 points on October 12, registering a decline of 0.81 per cent. Mirroring the negative sentiments of the market participants both at the local and GDR markets, the Reliance GDR was quoted at a discount of over 1 per cent against its underlying stock which closed at Rs 107.40 on the local bourses. During mid-day trading, the Reliance GDR was traded at $ 5 (for two GDRs).

Bulls were once again caught unawares at the counters of Satyam Computers, which was hammered from the day's high of Rs 609 to a low of Rs 560, Infosys Technologies from an intra-day's high of Rs 2,399 to a low of Rs 2,309 and Zee Telefilms from a high of Rs 686.75 to a low of Rs 658. The badla session on BSE on October 10,saw three of the UTI scheme units attracting backwardation on the bourse, indicative of a huge selling in the absence of delivery. UTI Mastergain attracted a backwardation of Rs 0.10 weighted average, Master Plus (Rs 0.03), while Master Share (Rs 0.01).

Master Share recorded a value erosion of Rs 0.30 to close at Rs 10.20, Mastergain was down by 1.12 per cent at Rs 8.90, while Master plus moved down to Rs 16.95 from its previous day's high of Rs 17. After having hammered down the ICICI stock to new lows, bears today moved towards the ICICI bank counter. The stock was locked at the lower limit of Rs 27.25 on the NSE.

The BSE's online trading system (BOLT) started at 11.45 am as against the normal trading time of 10 am. This according to RC Mathur, the executive director of the exchange was on account of the failure of 5 power supplies in the Tandem CPU and Disc Sub system. "Two spare power supplies with BSE were utilised to partially bring up the system. The system was reconfigured and trading was startedat 11.45 am," read the press release. The exact cause of the failure of power supply is being investigated, the exchange has cited `lightning' which could have hampered the power supply.

IT, pharma stocks set to make Sensex debut

The Index committee of the Bombay Stock Exchange today met to review the composition of the BSE-30 in the light of the current market scenario. According to insiders, as the Sensex fails to give a true picture of the market sentiments, the committee has decided to revamp it by including the representatives of both infotech and pharma stocks and reduce the weightage of commodity stocks which are cyclical in nature. The committee comprises sixteen members, experts from the broking fraternity, FIIs, domestic institutions and mutual fund industry.