Foreign funds selling cuts short recovery; Sensex up 36 points
Our Market Bureau
MUMBAI, January 13: Aggressive selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) had an adverse impact on market sentiment on Tuesday which saw the 30-share BSE Sensitive Index fluctuate in the band of 3,417.05-3,479.95 points."Huge bulk sale orders were recorded at the counters of Bajaj Auto, VSNL, Hindalco, Punjab Tractors, L&T, Corporation Bank, ICICI Banking, ITC and Hindustan Lever," commented a BSE broker. Reflecting the nervousness in the market, local operators took the opportunity to square up their positions on the last day of the current trading cycle on the NSE, which saw the Sensex settle at 3,431.72, registering a gain of 36.08 points. The Nifty index recorded a gain of 3.30 points to close at 999.10 points on a turnover of Rs 1,403.10 crore. The Bombay Stock Exchange recorded a jump in its turnover by an approximate 12 per cent at Rs 1,042.21 crore, with the contribution from the B1 group securities rising by over 5 per cent at Rs 43.14 crore. "During the last phase of the session
prices of pivotals recorded a sharp drop which reflected the extent of long positions still available in the market," commented a dealer at an FII brokerage firm. "The rise was purely on shortcovering in the face of institutional selling," he added. The FII figures for January 12 on the BSE continued to be negative at Rs 21 crore. According to analysts, the day's rally has been described as a technical correction. The most hit among the index-based stocks were the MNCs like Glaxo, Pond's and Hindustan Lever apart from scrips like IOC, VSNL and MTNL. Sources said HLL was the only counter which continued to be hammered down despite the slight improvement in the prices of other stocks. The stock accounted for a huge volume of over six lakh shares on the local bourses, with the share price plummeting by over 3 per cent. According to sources, Schroder's was also learnt to have pressed sales at the counter of HLL and MTNL through a foreign brokerage outfit.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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