MUMBAI, May 7: After the modest recovery in the previous session, pivotals once again turned subdued on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today mainly on lack of fresh buying coupled with absence of institutional support. After a steady spell share prices declined as the session progressed on profit-taking. The closing rates showed widespread small to modest losses. The volume of business dropped.

The BSE sensitive index moved between 3790.69 and 3751.93, before finishing at 3753.50 with a modest loss of 27.99 points compared to the previous level of 3781.49. The BSE-100 index eased by 12.32 points to 1612.15 from the previous level of 1624.47.

Brokers said the sentiment was affected mainly on lack of speculative support in anticipation of a hike in petroleum prices. This apart, the profit-taking was also due to discouraging corporate results. Most of the blue chip companies have shown drop in net profit in the last few days. Century suffered further sharp setback on selling pressure following the fall in net profit.

The FII buying was restricted to few scrips like VSNL, Ingersoll, ICI and others. The authorities had to apply circuit breaker in Bank of India as the scrip rallied smartly on buying by foreign funds. SBI continued to top the list of active shares with a turnover of Rs 187.l0 crore out of the total volume of Rs 548.21 crore followed by ITC Rs 83.26 crore, Reliance Rs 58.50 crore, Tata Steel Rs 50.84 crore and BHEL Rs 18.58 crore. Century Textiles declined further sharply by Rs 225.25 at Rs 2033.25 on bull unloading. SBI and Reliance lost Rs 1.75 and Rs 2.50 at Rs 305 and Rs 300.50 respectively.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), pivotals registered early gains on hectic activity but slipped later on selling pressure from speculators on the first day of the settlement. The NSE-50 index opened higher at 1053.10 and touched a peak level of 1055.05 but dropped to a low of 1042.55 and closed at 1044.40 with a loss of 4.00 points from the previous close of 1048.40.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.