Cautious calls logged

STOCKS REPORT

Selling pressure on the back of profit booking at higher levels in the cash segment and the expiry of the January series futures contracts in the F&O segment led to the Sensex falling by another 74 points yesterday.

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex lost 1.25 per cent to close at 5802.75 points. The broader National Stock Exchange S&P CNX Nifty shed 1.05 per cent (19.50 points) to end at 1843.60.

The mood of the market appeared cautious with the expiry of January series futures appearing to be weighing on sentiment. Despite being up as much as 46 points in the afternoon, the Sensex lost ground to close in negative territory in an extremely volatile day.

The Sensex touched a high of 5,921.72 and a low of 5,774.32 in intra-day trades. Declines outpacing advances 1107:612. Cash market turnover was at Rs 3186.54 crore on the BSE and Rs 7198.49 crore at the NSE.

Says a dealer from a local brokerage: "Investors sold in the cash market to adjust portfolios to account for the expiry of derivatives on Thursday."

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers at Rs 259.3 crore of Indian equities on Wednesday and have brought in a total of Rs 3206.6 crore in January so far.

Hanu Bhatia, vice-president, Parag Parikh Investment Intermediaries, says: " Corrections are part of a rising market and profit taking by older players is bound to be expected even as new players buy in. This is a sign of maturing markets and as of now there are no indications that the sentiment has turned negative."

Heavyweight Reliance Industries was down 1.44 per cent at Rs 569.95, Hindustan Lever was down 2.72 per cent at Rs 187.85 and State Bank of India was down 1.48 per cent at Rs 624.

Wipro was down 5.22 per cent at Rs 1,570.35, Infosys Tech was down 3.18 per cent at Rs 5,265.15 and Satyam Computer was down 2.19 per cent at Rs 328.15.

Cipla was down 4.89 per cent at Rs 1,214.60. Zee Telefilms was down by 3.60 per cent at Rs 155.30. ICICI Bank was down 2.43 per cent at Rs 287.25. ONGC was down 1.31 per cent at Rs 764.60.

Reliance Energy was up 3.22 per cent at Rs 553.70 and Tata Power was up 0.59 per cent at Rs 392.85. Grasim was up 3.13 per cent at Rs 1,150.10 and ACC was up 0.23 per cent at Rs 259.90.