Mumbai, Oct 9: It was another mixed day in the stock market but with a difference. The Sensex stalwarts Telco and Grasim touched their historical lows with other stocks from the Old Economy falling in anticapation of a slowdown in the economy. There seem to be no interest in the market with business being very low and the second quarter results from the infotech stocks like Infosys and Satyam Computers also failed to enthuse the sentiment.Satyam Computers and Infosys Technologies will declare their financial results on Tuesday.
The market opened marginally higher in the morning but selling pressure in index stocks like Grasim, Gujarat Ambuja, HLL, L&T, Mahindra & Mahindra pushed the Sensex to fall by 37 points at 4,056. At NSE, S&P CNX Nifty dropped by 20 points at 1,265. Technology stocks moved in a narrow range but later in the day stocks like Pentamedia, Satyam Comp, Infosys, and Silverline showed marginal gains whereas HFCL, Global Tele, DSQ Soft, Wipro, and SSI were down marginally.
Among the non-tech stocks, HLL, ITC, and Ranbaxy did poorly, and affected the Sensex. The cement stocks like Grasim, Guj Ambuja, and L&T also reported huge selling pressure. Reliance, SBI, and Bhel meanwhile gained marginally.
Sterlite was another company whose stock fell sharply by 10.5 per cent at Rs 137.95.
In the gainers list was ICICI Bank as the stock spurted by 8.5 per cent to closed at Rs 120 after taking a beating on Friday. Dealers said that with the reverse merger of ICICI with ICICI Bank is likely to help the investors.
However ICICI stock remained stable and there was not much movement in its price. Other stock in the gainer list include Vikas WSP as the company is on the verge of splitting its shares.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.