Sensex declines marginally in restricted trading

Our Markets Bureau

Mumbai, Aug 28: IT was yet another dull day at the bourses on Tuesday with very restricted activities. The volume at the markets also shrunk with rangebound movements of prices. The benchmark indices --BSE Sensex closed with minor losses while S&P CNX Nifty remained unchanged before moving in a narrow range of 7 points.

Dealers are expecting some action at the bourses from Thursday as Wednesday is the last day of monsoon session of the Parliament. The optimism about the return of the big bull Ketan Parekh and he becoming active once again is also gaining momentum particularly after he was released on bail by the Gujarat court last week.

The Sensex opened almost unchanged at the previous level of 3318.65 and moved in a narrow range of 25 points between 3333.17 and 3308.36, before being closed at 3313.07, a minor loss of 5.25 points. NIfty however, remained unchanged at the Monday’s level of 1072.55.

However, the broad-based market indices like BSE 200 and BSE 500 posted a better performance. BSE 200 was 62.54 points at 341.70 while BSE 500 gained by 182.30 points at 1003.13.

The turnover of market was moderately down at Rs 842.22 crore from the previous Rs 884.71 crore on Monday. Infosys Technologies was the most active counter with the stock clocking a turnover of Rs 87.60 crore.

Tata Engg continued to attract the selling pressure as institutional as well as other set of investors which were seen buying in this counter unwinded their positions and the stock has lost another 4.64 per cent to close at Rs 73. NIIT was another major loser with the stock shedding 2.84 per cent to close at Rs 171. ICICI also continued witnessing selling pressure in the wake of news report that the financier to the controversial Dabhol Power project would come under severe pressure. The stock went down by another 2.40 per cent to close at Rs 52.90. Other prominent loser were from the old economy giants like ACC, L&T, Tata Steel, RPL, RIL and FMCG giants like HLL and Colgate Palmolive.

PSU telephony major MTNL was in limelight after the optimism about company’s ADR issue gathered momentum. The stock jumped by almost 4.13 per cent at Rs 124.95 as compared to previous close Rs 120. The company proposes to follow VSNL route to get listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) by converting its GDR into ADRs. At present, 11 per cent of the total equity of the company is in the form of GDRs.