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Vote fever squeezes market out of shape; Sensex crashses 107 points to 3358; markets open on Saturday

Political uncertainty arising out of the vote of confidence in the Vajpayee-led government in the Lok Sabha twisted the Sensex out of shape today. The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share benchmark index crashed 106.52 points to 3358 from 3464.52.

The markets opened weak in the morning session. However, as reports came in that the vote will take place on Saturday, the sentiment improved. So from 3363.91, the Sensex rose to the 3400 level on buying support from Morgan Stanley and the Unit Trust of India.

However, selling pressure pushed down blue chips as well as infotech stocks. They could recover only in the mid session.

A weak trend was seen in the pharmaceutical and fast moving consumer goods sectors. Tata Tea, DSQ, Rolta, Ranbaxy and Siemens hit the lower limit of the circuit-breaker.

Many brokers expressed apprehension over the fate of the Finance Bill.

At the end of the day, there was an across-the-board decline in share prices on panic selling pressure by operators.

The foreign institutional investors as well as domestic institutional investors preferred to stay away from the market due to ongoing political developments.

Brokers said that the market is likely to react on Saturday, when the voting takes place. Both the BSE and the National Stock Exchange will be open on Saturday, according to a late decision taken today by both the bourses. This will help members to trade according to the political climate.

The S&P CNX Nifty at the NSE declined sharply by 25.65 points to 968.65 points against the previous close of 994.25 points.

Pentafour Software's decision to go in for bonus issue failed to cheer the market, the company's scrip. After the announcement, Pentafour closed sharply lower at Rs 1,060 from the previous close of Rs 1,107.

The broad-based BSE-100 index declined sharply by 56.61 points to 1458.87 points from the previous close of 1515.48 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices moved down by 13.13 and 5.51 points to 333.86 and 129.78 points as against the previous close of 346.99 and 135.29 points respectively.

According to BSE brokers, most of the bull operators have unloaded heavily to reduce their outstanding positions.

Total turnover on the BOLT system reported during the day was Rs 12.27 billion.

Pentafour Software topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 3.72 billion, followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.88 billion and ITC Rs 613.8 million.

Other actively traded counters were Tata Tea (Rs 430 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 313.2 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 303.7 million), Reliance (Rs 303 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 262.4 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 222.8 million), SBI (Rs 219.9 million), ACC (Rs 202 million), Glaxo (Rs 187 million), L&T (Rs 171.2 million) and BHEL Rs 136.7 million).

Additional reportage: UNI

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