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Sensex loses 38 points

The FIIs sold index-based shares including of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Hindustan Lever, Castrol, Tata Tea and the State Bank of India, leading brokers said.

The BSE Sensitive index dropped below the psychological barrier of 3400 mark. It opened lower at 3408.67 points, touched day's high of 3409.34 points, low of 3366.94 points before closing at 3380.30 points, suffering a loss of 38.04 points as against its previous close of 3418.34 points.

The broadbased BSE National index also declined by 17.00 points to 1472.79 points over the last trading day's close of 1489.79 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices finished at 329.94 and 141.29 points losing by 03.97 and 01.40 points as compared to its previous close of 333.91 and 142.69 points respectively.

Towards the fag end of trading session, the domestic institutions including Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation, and General Insurance Corporation entered the market and bought sizeable amount of heavy-weighted share to arrest heavy downfall in the Sensex, brokers added.

The continuous turmoil in the Asian currency market had an adverse impact on the stock prices in the United States of America while in Tokyo, stock prices also dropped on profit-taking in active trading today after six trading days of gains. The Nikkei stock declined by 278.73 points, according to a foreign report.

The volume of business in the BSE was thin and equity prices moved in a narrow range, brokers said, and added this trend will continue till a new government forms at the Centre.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system declined by Rs 970 million to Rs 7.44 billion as compared to the previous total turnover of Rs 8.41 billion. Out of 6,886 scrips, a total number of 1,587 scrips were traded.

Indian tobacco giant ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 1.7 billion followed by SBI Rs 1.4 billion, Tata Tea Rs 1.2 billion, Castrol India Rs 734.6 million, Reliance Rs 307.1 million, TELCO Rs 256.7 million, ICICI Rs 190.6 million, L&T Rs 170.6 million, MTNL Rs 125 million, TISCO Rs 116.2 million, Hind Lever Rs 103.8 million, BHEL Rs 89.3 million, ACC Rs 77.3 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 62.4 million, BPL Rs 54.7 million in the specified counters.

Good transactions were observed at Corporation (Rs 59.3 million), Mico (Rs 20.6 million), Videsh Sanch (Rs 18.6 million), ICICI Bank (Rs 16 million), Bata India (Rs 15.7 million), Carr Aircon (Rs 10.8 million), LML (Rs 10.7 million), ONGC (Rs 10.6 million) at 'B1' counters.

UNI