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Mid-term poll fear spreads panic; Sensex tumbles 57 points, 2825.08

In a panicky reaction to uncertain political situation and prospects of a mid-term poll, the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange tumbled by almost 57 points today.

The BSE-30 Sensitive Index fell by 56.61 points to end at 2825.08 from the previous close of 2881.69. The Sensex opened at 2874.26 points and witnessed a high and low of 2896.19 and 2815.97 respectively.

According to marketmen, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's hint at the possibility of mid-term elections had a downward impact on the market. ''Fresh elections could lead the economic priorities to take a backseat,'' opined a broker.

Another factor driving the downtrend was bull liquidation by foreign institutional investors in Tata companies like Telco and Tisco.

The FIIs also off-loaded stocks of index-based scrips, marketmen said and added that domestic institutions like UTI, LIC and GIC had a nominal presence in the market.

The BSE-100 index ended at 1259.86, down by 24.66 points from the previous close of 1284.52 points. The BSE-200 index closed 5.28 points lower at 292.98 points from the previous close of 298.26 points.

The Dollex index fell by 2.23 points to 114.83 from Yesterday's close of 117.06.

The Tisco scrip fell by Rs 3.50 to Rs 86.75, Reliance fell by Rs 2.20 to Rs 113.50 and Hindustan Lever closed at 1585, down Rs 25 from the previous close of Rs 1610.

The total turnover on the BOLT network was Rs 9.51 billion from trading in 49.2 million shares.

Satyam Computers topped the turnover list with Rs 1.55 billion followed by ITC (Rs 1.01 billion), Reliance (Rs 1 billion), Telco (Rs 839.8 million) and SBI (Rs 583.7 million). Others that recorded a high turnover were Zee Telefilms, Pentafour, Tata Tea, Castrol, Glaxo, Tisco, ACC, Sterlite, Infosys and L&T.

UNI

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