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Pivotals soften after firm start on Mulayam's move; Sensex down 2.15 points to 3406.59

Opening on a firm note, pivotals closed marginally lower after witnessing considerable intra-day fall on the Bombay Stock Exchange on the last day of current weekly settlement today.

Political uncertainty arising out of the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's announcement that his party will not extend its support to the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party affected the market sentiment. There were even fears of mid-term election, dealers said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 3421.89 points, higher from the previous close of 3408.74 points. It touched day's high of 3449.23 points, fell below the psychological barrier of 3400 points, reached the day's low of 3361.10 points, before closing at 3406.59 points, down 2.15 points. In all, the index swung 88 points during the day.

The broad-based BSE-100 index drifted lower by 7.10 points to 1481.85 points from the previous close of 1488.95 points.

The infotech counters witnessed a mixed trend. Except Rhone Poulen, all the pharma shares reported a decline. Select shares from the other groups like FMCG and others posted gains on good buying support.

The foreign institutional investors have reportedly made purchases in Ranbaxy and BPL, dealers said.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also eased further by 2.04 and 0.71 points to 338.57 and 131.89 points respectively.

The scrips which hit the upward circuit filters were Rhone Poulen, Cadbury, McDowell.

The gainers were ACC, ITC, Infosys, Rolta, PSI Data, Procter and Gamble and Nestle.

The losers were Satyam Computers, Pentafour Software, PSL Software, Ramco, Glaxo, Smithkline Beecham, Novartis, IPCA, Burroughs Wellcome.

Being the last day of settlement, most of the market players were busy in squaring up their positions, dealers said.

Total turnover on the BOLT system stood at Rs 14.459 billion. Pentafour Software topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 2.22 billion, followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.55 billion, Ranbaxy Rs 1.10 billion, ITC Rs 942.2 million and Zee Telefilm Rs 753.5 million.

Other actively traded counters were Reliance (Rs 712.3 million), BPL Limited (Rs 565.7 million), ACC (Rs 403.3 million), MTNL (Rs 369.3 million), SBI (Rs 353.6 million), Tata Tea (Rs 294.2 million), L&T (Rs 205.9 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 196.4 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 164 million).

UNI

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