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Equities crash on FII pressure; no gainers among Nifty shares; index down 64 points, 840.75

Share prices crashed on speculative selling pressure from bull operators and foreign financial institutions at the National Stock Exchange today.

Mirroring the downtrend, the S&P CNX Nifty slid by 64.20 points to 840.75 points from 904.95 points of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior crashed by 93.15 points to 1445.35 points from 1538.50 points. The S&P CNX Defty fell by 51.15 points to 687.30 points from 738.45 points while the S&P CNX 500 dipped by 40.82 points to 582.12 points from 622.94 points.

The CNX Midcap 200 Index was sunk by 34.70 points to 518.08 points from 552.78 points.

The total turnover, involving 49.47 million shares, in 173,570 trades, was Rs 14.67 billion and the debentures traded value was Rs 8.20 million.

About 820 scrips declined, 109 advanced while 48 remained unchanged. 166 securities hit their price bands today.

FIIs sold shares worth Rs 901.18 million against their lower purchase of Rs 353.95 million, showing their net sales at Rs 547.22 million.

There were no gainers in the S&P CNX Nifty today. The top losers were: MRPL 8.42 per cent to Rs 13.05, Bajaj Auto, HPCL and TVS Suzuki eight per cent each to Rs 597.80, Rs 270.80, Rs 512 respectively and BHEL by 7.99 per cent to Rs 259.05.

Satyam Computers registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.94 billion, followed by ITC Rs 2.87 billion. The other actively traded scrips were: Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.60 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 944.4 million), HCL-HP (Rs 766.5 million), Reliance (Rs 660.6 million), SBI New (Rs 654.1 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 431.2 million), Castrol (Rs 372.8 million), Tata Tea (Rs 267.2 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 238.4 million), BFL Software (Rs 167.2 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 157.3 million), ACC (Rs 157.2 million), Infosys Technolgies (Rs 151.5 million), MTNL (Rs 132.9 million), L&T (Rs 128.1 million), Telco (Rs 105.6 million), NIIT (Rs 103.7 million), BHEL (Rs 95.4 million) and Tisco (Rs 94.5 million).

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 2.68 billion. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 2000 (Series III) was traded for Rs 600 million at a weighted yield of 11.48 per cent.

The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 500 million at a weighted yield of 11.59 per cent. The 12.50 per cent non-SLR bond of IDBI maturing in 1999 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of Rs 125.1 million. The turnover in debentures was Rs 5.72 million today.

UNI