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Bulls, FIIs exert selling pressure on pivotals; Nifty down 26 points, 874.25

Pivotals exhibited a moderate decline on heavy selling pressure by foreign institutional investors and bull operators on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the downslide, the S&P CNX Nifty Index slid by 26.30 points to 847.95 points from 874.25 of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty junior index sunk by 31.30 points to 1488.85 points from 1520.15 while S&P CNX Defty sunk by 21.85 points to 693.75 from 715.60 points. The S&P CNX 500 declined by 17.44 points to 587.32 from 604.76 points while the CNX Midcap 200 index was lower by 11.51 points to 527.64 from 539.15 points.

The total turnover in 231,781 trades, involving 67.66 million shares was Rs 21 billion and the debenture turnover was Rs 4 million.

About 650 scrips declined, 266 firmed up and 76 remained unchanged. More than 50 securities hit their price bands today.

The top gainers were: Reliance Petroleum (4.11 per cent increase to Rs 19), P&G 3.41 per cent to Rs 784.85, Cipla 1.61 per cent to Rs 889.40 and India Hotel 0.27 per cent to Rs 409.25.

Cochin Refineries topped the losers' list with 7.37 per cent decline to Rs 148.90, followed by SBI New 7.36 per cent to Rs 167.30, HPCL 7.31 per cent to Rs 237.20, BHEL 6.90 per cent to Rs 245.60 and L&T 6.12 per cent to Rs 165.

FIIs today sold shares worth Rs 389.4 million against their lower purchases for about Rs 245.3 million, indicating the outflow to the tune of Rs 140 million. However, the domestic institutions were the net buyers for Rs 69.7 million today.

ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 5.49 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 3.37 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 2.36 billion), SBI (Rs 1.45 billion), Reliance (Rs 1.32 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.25 billion), Dr Reddy's (Rs 736.8 million), Castrol (Rs 325.4 million), MTNL (Rs 273.9 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 268.5 million), ACC (Rs 261.8 million), NIIT (Rs 260.3 million), HCL-HP (Rs 237.1 million).

The other actively traded scrips were: BHEL (Rs 230 million), L&T (Rs 215.1 million, BFL Software (Rs 209.3 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 181.5 million), Tata Tea (Rs 176.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 155.2 million), Square D Software (Rs 139.8 million), Silverline (Rs 123.2 million), Telco (Rs 118.6 million) and Bajaj Auto (Rs 114.5 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 2.39 billion. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 2000 (III) was traded for Rs 350 million at a weighted yield of 11.52 per cent. The 11.64 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 400 million at a weighted yield of 11.45 per cent.

The commercial paper of M&M, maturing on December 28 1998 was traded for Rs 80 million at a yield of 11.22 per cent. One repo trade worth Rs 200 million was transacted at repo rate of 8.75 for 14 days. The turnover in debentures was Rs 3.7 million.

UNI