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Sensex loses 112 points

The Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday expressed its disappointment over the Reserve Bank of India's slack season credit policy -- the sensex nosedived by 112 points following large scale bull liquidation by major players, which pushed it below the psychological barrier of 4,000 points to close at 3970.28.

''The market was expecting much more than what was announced by the RBI governor. Therefore, it suffered a major setback on the announcement,'' BSE president Jaswantlal Parekh said.

Reflecting the weak trend, the BSE sensitive index opened at 4,076.23 points, touched the day's high of 4,085.76, fell below the important mark of 4,000 points to touch the day's low of 3,964.95 and finally ended at 3,964.95 points, netting a sharp loss of 112.55 points over the previous close of 4082.83 points.

The broadbased BSE-100 index fell by 50.50 points to 1,743.56 points, as against the previous close of 1,794.06.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices closed lower by 11.08 and 4.82 points to 394.33 and 165.16 points, as against the previous close of 405.41 and 169.98 points respectively.

Commenting on the RBI's credit policy, Nimesh Kampani, chairman of the J M Financial and Investment Consultancy Services, said that it has once again ignored the capital markets. The RBI has allowed the banks to advance upto Rs 2 million for investments in dematerialised securities. The minimum margin has also been reduced to 25 per cent from 50 per cent.

Prime scrips like ACC dropped by 46.75 to Rs 1,543, automobile giant Bajaja Auto declined by Rs 6.50 to Rs 544.50, market leader Reliance moved down by Rs 2.40 to Rs 189.70, State Bank fell by Rs 10.60 to Rs 285.20, Tisco eased by Rs 3.80 to Rs 151.30 and Telco by Rs 6.70 to Rs 279.50.

Brokers said the no delivery period in the Reliance and Tisco avoided a major fall in these scrips.

The total turnover on BSE was Rs 10.03 billion.

Market leader Reliance topped the list of turnover by registering the highest business volume of Rs 1.52 billion, ITC (rs 1.08 billion), SBI (Rs 1 billion), Tata Tea (Rs 690.4 million), ACC (Rs 482.1million), Pentafour S (Rs 374.2 million), Castrol Ind (Rs 341 million), Zee Telefilm (Rs 326 million), Satyam Computer (Rs 247.1 million), ICICI Ltd (Rs 219.6 million), BPL Ltd (Rs 173.2 million), Tata Chem (Rs 157.5 million), Tisco (Rs 150.1 million), BHEL (Rs 129.6 million), Sterlite (Rs 121.6 million).

Hectic activity was observed at the counters led by Him-fut comm (Rs 25.6 million), Hind Oil Exp (Rs 23.5 million), Rel Pet (Rs 12.9 million), HCL Infosys (Rs 12.8 million), Wipro (Rs 11.5 million), Silverline (Rs 9.7 million), DSQ Software (Rs 8.7 million), Tata Infotec (Rs 7.4 million), Bausch and Lomd (Rs 7.1 million), Jagajit Ind (Rs 7 million), Software Sol (Rs 6.8 million), Shriram Honda (Rs 6.6 million), Appollo Hosp (Rs 5.6 million), Bata India (Rs 5.3 million) and Merind (Rs 4.7 million).

UNI