The Hindu : Early gains not held on BSE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

Business

Business

Early gains not held on BSE

MUMBAI MARCH 3. Equities lost their early gains and registered marked fall pushing the Sensex in the negative territory at close on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on a late selling by speculators and retail investors.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index, which opened firm at 3301.67 and rose to the intra-day high of 3311.57 at early stages, later met with strong resistance and finished at 3277.27 against last Friday's close of 3283.66, netting a loss of 6.39 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index eased by 5.09 points to 1623.63 from 1628.72.

Foreign institutional investors, who were net sellers in the first four sessions of last week, have slowed down their activity making small deals in select counters. Domestic financial institutions too have withdrawn from the market, brokers said adding that operators and public investors pushed blue chip counters higher during initial trading and then booked profits at higher levels in the latter part of the session.

However, hotel, banking and pharmaceutical stocks stole the limelight scoring impressive gains on buying prompted by favourable budget proposals for these sectors. Indian Hotels, EIH, Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy's, Cipla, SBI, BOB, Federal Bank and Oriental Bank recorded handsome gains. In the specified group, 103 including 20 index-based counters registered losses while 89 others closed with gains. The volume of business was sharply down at Rs. 1,200.88 crores against Rs. 2,018.51 crores. — PTI

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