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Day of the static Sensex: buying support eludes BSE, 2812.06

Equities remained steady at the Bombay Stock Exchange in the absence of major buying support from institutional investors and market players today.

Except the limited buying by Life Insurance Corporation, there was hardly any activity by punters. The last day of the trading cycle on the National Stock Exchange seems to have restricted the movement, BSE brokers said.

Mirroring the trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index opened at 2815.67 points, touched the day's high of 2831.72 points, fell to the day's low of 2809.01, before closing at 2812.06 points, showing a gain of 0.62 points over the previous close of 2811.44 points.

However, the broad-based BSE-100 index drifted lower by 2.47 points to 292.13 points against the previous close of 293.20 points.

The stock markets which always felt impact of the world markets behaved indifferent to the ongoing uptrend there. According to market sources, the Hang Seng Index at Hongkong zoomed up by 188.44 points to 10358.52 points today while the FTSE-100 at London also quoted higher by 0.8 per cent to 5529.90 soon after the opening.

Among the issues, Cadbury declined by Rs 7.25 to Rs 376.25, Dr Reddy's down by Rs 3 to Rs 435.50, Hero Honda Rs 9 to Rs 541, Hindalco Rs 3.75 to Rs 508.25, India Hotel Rs 2 to Rs 405, ITC Rs 4.55 to Rs 699.25, L&T Rs 2.50 to Rs 142, M&M Rs 0.60 to Rs 147.40, NIIT Rs 9 to Rs 1278, Penta Software Rs 10.70 to Rs 624.50, Procter and Gamble Rs 3.25 to Rs 748, Reliance Rs 1.30 to Rs 109.10, Telco Rs 0.60 to Rs 112.70, Tata Tea Rs 3.50 to Rs 293 and Zee Telefilms Rs 7 to Rs 672.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also closed lower by 1.07 and 0.39 points to 292.13 and 115.01 points against the previous close of 292.13 and 115.01 points.

Total turnover on the BSE reduced sharply to Rs 8.40 billion from yesterday's turnover of Rs 9.33 billion.

ITC clocked highest turnover at Rs 1.98 billion followed by SBI Rs 837.6 billion, Satyam Computer Rs 568.4 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 520.5 million and Reliance Rs 468.7 million.

Other actively traded scrips were MTNL (Rs 318.2 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 283.6 million), Telco (Rs 196.8 million), Tisco (Rs 184.5 million), Castrol (Rs 160.1 million), Tata Tea (Rs 152.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 135.7 million), L&T (Rs 110.1 million) and ACC (Rs 109.9 million).

UNI