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Subdued sentiment persists; Nifty down eight points, 864.10

Pivotals opened on a firm note but declined marginally towards close on speculative selling by foreign institutional investors on the National Stock Exchange today.

Mirroring the subdued trend, the S&P CNX Nifty Index lost 8.15 points to 864.10 points from 872.25 points of the previous day. The CNX Nifty Junior also fell by 6.05 points to 1458.85 points from 1464.90 points while S&P CNX Defty Index slide by 6.85 points to 694.35 points from 701.20 points.

S&P CNX 500 equity index also moved down by 2.11 points to 590.66 points from 592.77 points. However, the CNX Midcap 200 index edged up by 0.28 points to 515.80 from 515.52 of the previous day.

The total turnover, involving 35.69 million shares in 141,600 trades was Rs 8.63 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 2.16 million.

About 418 scrips moved up, 469 declined and 93 remained unchanged. Nearly 30 securities hit their price bands today.

The total sales of shares by FIIs today were Rs 238.96 million against their lower purchases of Rs 109.37 million resulting in an outflow of foreign funds to the tune of Rs 129.58 million. However, financial institutions/mutual funds registered a net investment of Rs 19.84 million in the market today.

ITC continued to register the highest turnover with Rs 1.47 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 1.18 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 834.1 million), Reliance (Rs 656.9 million), Pentafour Software (Rs 619.7 million), SBI (Rs 483 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 367.2 million), Tata Tea (Rs 216.5 million), Castrol (Rs 210.7 million), Silverline (Rs 180.6 million), ACC (Rs 173.6 million), L&T (Rs 164.8 million) and BHEL (Rs 118.2 million).

The other actively traded counters were Telco (Rs 117.4 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 115.9 million), HCL-HP (Rs 94.1 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 89.9 million), MTNL (Rs 84.3 million), Dabur (Rs 84.2 million), BFL Software (Rs 74.9 million), NIIT (Rs 70.8 million), Tisco (Rs 65.3 million), Colgate (Rs 58.1 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 49.4 million) and Ranbaxy (Rs 48.5 million).

ITC Hotels recorded the highest gain of 0.90 per cent to Rs 302.95, followed by Thermax 0.80 per cent to Rs 188.90, Mahindra and Mahindra 0.73 per cent to Rs 150.90, BPCL 0.69 per cent to Rs 261.35 and BSES 0.68 per cent to Rs 147.95.

Gujarat Ambuja Cement topped in the losers list with 5.95 per cent loss to Rs 177.90, followed by IPCL 5.62 per cent to Rs 46.20, India Rayon 3.50 per cent to Rs 126.70, Reliance Capital 3 per cent to Rs 45.30 and BHEL 2.29 per cent to Rs 215.70.

The wholesale debt market segment of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 5.20 billion today. The 11.55 per cent government of India bond maturing in 2001 was traded actively for Rs 1.55 billion at a weighted yield of 11.43 per cent. The newly issued 11.78 per cent government of India maturing in 2003 was traded for Rs 1.30 billion at a weighted yield of 11.75 per cent. Commercial paper of Tisco maturing on October 29, 1998 was traded for Rs 50 million at a yeild of 9.80 per cent. A repo trade for Rs 100 million was struck at 7.25 per cent for a repo term of 12 days.

UNI