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Apathy to credit policy intensifies selling pressure; Sensex down 63 points, 2833.04

Pivotals declined sharply at the Bombay Stock Exchange following heavy selling pressure from foreign institutional investors and domestic institutional investors, bringing down the BSE Sensex by about 63 points today.

According to market sources, there was heavy covering by speculators on the announcement of prime minister's economic reform package and therefore the reaction was expected. The market participants were also not much enthusiastic about the Reserve Bank of India's credit policy.

There would not be much changes in the interest rates structure and the market is not going to benefit out of the credit policy, an analyst at an institutional brokerage house said.

Despite the downtrend in the market, Tata Tea and Novartis scrips reported smart gains following encouraging half-yearly performance by them.

Reflecting the weak trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index opened at the day's high of 2913.62, fell below the 2900 mark to touch the day's low of 2832.95 points before closing at 2833.04, showing a net loss of 62.80 points over the previous close of 2895.84 points. The broad-based BSE-100 index dropped by 26.14 points to 1270.62 points from the previous close of 1296.76 points.

The FIIs reportedly sold at the counters led by ITC, Zee TV, Glaxo, Castrol and Nestle. The Unit Trust of India also remained seller throughout the day, dealers said.

Tata Tea has posted a net profit of Rs 944.2 million during the first half ended September 30, 1998 compared to Rs 503.1 million in the corresponding period of the previous year. Similarly, Novartis also posted an increased net profit of Rs 315 million in the first half against Rs 154 million last year.

Tata Tea scrips closed higher by Rs 7.50 to Rs 292 at the BSE while Novartis closed higher by Rs 14 to Rs 702 from Rs 688.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices declined by 5.55 and 2.15 points at 296.59 and 116.88 points from the previous close of 302.14 and 119.03 points respectively.

According to a report, the stock markets in the overseas also witnessed downtrend with the Nikkei benchmark index fell by 304.61 points to 13516.07 while the FTSE-100 at London down by 62.90 points at 5268.30 points.

The Hang Seng index at the Hongkong, however, reported a gain of 148 points at 9927.05 when reports last came in.

Total turnover on the BSE's BOLT network declined by Rs 3.03 billion to Rs 12.17 billion from Tuesday's turnover of Rs 15.21 billion.

Tobacco giant ITC stood first in the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 2.86 billion followed by Satyam Computer Rs 2.67 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 770.4 million, Pentafour Software Rs 731.6 million and Reliance Rs 635.1 million.

Other actively traded counters were State Bank (Rs 565.9 million), Tata Tea (Rs 518.7 million), Telco (Rs 310.8 million), MTNL (Rs 277.1 million), L&T (Rs 182.2 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 168.3 million), Glaxo (Rs 142.6 million), Castrol India (Rs 140.5 million), ACC (Rs 128.8 million) and Dr Reddy's (Rs 85.9 million).

UNI