Mumbai, Nov 7: Share prices declined further on the Mumbai Stock Exchange (BSE) today despite good buying support from Unit Trust of India, at the last day of current settlement.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their selling in fundamentally strong scrips, while except the Unit Trust of India (UTI) there were no takers in a big way, marketmen said.

Reflecting the weak trend, the BSE sensitive index opened at 3761.16 points, touched the day's high of 3764.61 and a day's low of 3732.11 points and later ended at 3747.32 points, showing a net loss of 16.64 points over the previous close of 3763.96 points.

Similarly, the BSE-100 index drifted lower by 9.13 points to 1619.21 points over the previous close of 1628.34 points. The-BSE 200 and Dollex indices finished at 364.31 and 165.95 points as against yesterday's close of 366.24 and 167.42 points respectively.

The Indian rupee today declined by about seven paise to Rs 36.53/54 per dollar against the US greenback in an active trading at the interbank foreign exchange market.

The rupee fell by about 14 paise against the US currency in the last two days.

Commenting on the rupee's fall against the US dollar, BSE members said that the fall of rupee value may affect the market for the time being as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have stopped their aggressive buying and are likely to stay away from the market in the coming days. According to marketmen, the Unit Trust of India made considerable purchases in the fundamentally strong scrips.

Total turnover on the Mumbai Stock Exchnage (BSE) reported during the day was Rs 501.69 crore.

Tobacco giant I T C topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover at Rs 152.86 crore, followed by Tata Tea Rs 76.89 crore, SBI Rs 53.78 crore, Reliance Rs 33.03 crore and Telco Rs 23.15 crore.

Hectic activity was observed at the other counters like Tisco Rs 15.25 crore, Castrol Rs 15.15 crore, Mahanagar Telephopne Ltd Rs 14.13 crore, Hindustan Lever Ltd Rs 8.28 crore, L and T Rs 8.10 crore, ACC Rs 6.54 crore, Bhel Rs 6.01 crore, Hero Honda Rs 5.12 crore, Bajaj Auto Rs 5.10 crore, Icici Ltd Rs 4.42 crore.

Good transactions were witnessed at the select counters in B1 group like Satyam Comp, NIIT, Madras Cements, Infosys Tech, LML Ltd, Zee Telefilm and Aptech Ltd.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.