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Pivotals dip on selling pressures; Nifty down three points, 904.95

Pivotals declined further on selling pressure on the opening day of the current settlement on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the subdued trend, the S&P CNX Nifty declined by 3.45 points to 904.95 points from 908.40 of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior also moved down by 4.90 points to 1538.50 points from 1543.40 points while the S&P CNX Defty edged down by 2.80 points to 738.45 points from 741.25 points.

However, the S&P CNX 500 Index was marginally up by 0.77 points to 622.94 points and CNX Midcap 200 Index advanced by 3.25 points to 552.78 points from 549.53 of the previous day.

The total turnover, involving Rs 55.49 million shares in 189,834 trades, was Rs 16.68 billion and the debentures traded value was Rs 3.61 million.

About 508 securities gained, 411 declined while 72 remained steady. About 60 securities hit their prices bands today.

Grasim recorded the highest gain of 7.89 per cent to Rs 187.25, followed by Cochin Refineries 4.24 per cent to Rs 164.75, HDFC Bank 2.45 per cent to Rs 64.85, IDBI 1.73 per cent to Rs 50.10 and Hindustan Lever 1.69 per cent to Rs 1685.75.

BHEL suffered the highest loss of 5.30 per cent to Rs 281.55, followed by Gujarat Ambuja Cement 3.59 per cent to Rs 199.85, Hindustan Petroleum 3.51 per cent to Rs 294.35, Telco 2.28 per cent to Rs 139 and M&M 1.96 per cent to Rs 182.15.

Satyam Computers registered the highest turnover of Rs 3.79 billion. Zee Telefilms (Rs 2.49 billion), ITC (Rs 2.35 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.20 billion), Reliance (Rs 955.9 million), SBI (Rs 801.5 million, HCL-HP (Rs 394.4 million), BFL Software (Rs 349.5 million), Castrol (Rs 313.1 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 273.9 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 230.4 million), Tata Tea (Rs 218.4 million) and BHEL (Rs 195.1 million).

The other actively traded counters were: MTNL (Rs 185 million, ACC (Rs 179.7 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 158.5 million), L&T (Rs 156.2 million), Grasim (Rs 138.2 million), Telco (Rs 103.4 million) and Silverline (Rs 102.4 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE also exhibited a dull trend with trades worth Rs 951 million. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 2000 (Series II) was traded for Rs 200 million at a weighted yield of 11.46 per cent. The 11.10 per cent government loan maturing in 2003 was traded for Rs 150 million at a weighted yield of 11.81 per cent.

The certificate of deposit of ICICI Limited, maturing on October 12, 1998 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of 9.15 per cent. Total turnover in debentures was Rs 3.27 million today.

UNI