The Hindu : Sensex on a roller-coaster ride

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 12, 2003

Business

Business

Sensex on a roller-coaster ride

MUMBAI APRIL 11. Despite attempts by domestic funds to salvage the situation, the market witnessed another stocks meltdown pushing the Sensex below the 3000-psychological barrier on the Bombay Stock Exchange here today on unabated sell-off by foreign institutional investors.

The FIIs were believed to have offloaded over 10 lakh shares of Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer, brokers said adding that even pharma heavyweight Dr. Reddy's Lab also tumbled by more than 8 cent due to heavy selling pressure.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened moderately lower at 3030.46 and later fell sharply to the intra-day low of 2962.97 in a somewhat roller-coaster activity before ending at 2997.87 against yesterday's close of 3035.33, netting a fall of 37.46 points. The broad-based BSE-100 index dipped by 17.55 points to 1482.38 from 1499.93.

Disappointed by Infosys's poor outlook for the fiscal 2003-04, the FIIs made fresh sales in IT counters sending the IT bellwether reeling down by another 14 per cent. Had it not been for the purchases made by local funds led by Life Insurance Corporation, Infosys would have touched the Rs. 2000-mark during the session, brokers added.

The Sensex was largely affected by sharp falls in Infosys, Dr. Reddy's Lab, Satyam Computer, Cipla, MTNL, SBI and Tisco even though a smart rally in RIL, Grasim, Hero Honda, HCL Technologies, BSES and BHEL helped mitigate the negative impact.

Meanwhile, the Nikkei too ended sharply lower by 163.63 points to 20-year low as a result of adverse impact of SARS on Asian markets.

In the specific group, 92 including 17 index-based counters registered sharp to moderate losses while 99 others closed with remarkable gains.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted lower at 356.88 and 125.32 against 359.99 and 126.42 respectively. The BSE-500 eased by 8.47 points to 1071.62 from 1080.09 and the Dollex-30 to 519.14 from 525.63.

The volume of business was high at Rs. 1,691.56 crores against Rs. 1,644.12 crores. Infosys were the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs. 572.79 crores followed by Satyam Rs. 236.21 crores), Digital Global (Rs. 176.52 crores), Mastek (Rs. 149.17 crores) and Geometric Software (Rs. 44.80 crores).

— PTI

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