Downhill still

STOCKS REPORT

Broad-based selling dragged the market down for the second consecutive day today. Down 40 points in intra-day trades to its low of 6380.76, the Sensex finally ended 9.58 points lower to close at 6445.13. The Nifty ended 8.35 points lower at 1985.95.

Brokers said, lack of strong impetus is keeping investors away from taking big buy calls.

Ambrish Baliga, vice-president, Karvy Stock Broking, said, "Intermediate correction are good and the markets are expected to consolidate at current levels."

The action is limited as the overall mood in the market remains cautious. The activity for the last few days has been fairly restricted to institutional investors, particularly the mutual funds, who raised a lot of money through IPOs.

After net buyers to the tune of Rs 213.40 crore on Monday, the mutual funds bought another Rs 187 crore worth Indian equities on Tuesday.

The FIIs were meanwhile net sellers to the tune of Rs 97.8 crore in yesterday's trading.

Technology apart, most other sectors such as consumer durables, metal, auto and banking sector stock ended negative. The BSE Metal Index was the biggest loser, down 0.67 per cent at 5638.89.

A dealer from a domestic brokerage said, "The markets corrected on profit booking across the board after record gains in last week."

The breadth of the market was negative with 998 stocks ending lower compared with 590 stock which ended positive. Among frontline counters, 18 out of the 30-scrip Sensex basket closed lower. Volumes too were low and accounted for Rs 1,898.72 crore on Tuesday as against Rs 2,036.39 crore recorded on the BSE.

Among the Sensex stocks, Wipro was the biggest loser, down 1.52 per cent to Rs 637.90, followed by Dr Reddy's, down 1.48 per cent to Rs 654.90, Larsen & Toubro, down 1.29 per cent to Rs 1,003.20, Tata Power, down 1.01 per cent to Rs 364, Maruti Udyog, down 0.89 per cent to Rs 433.10 and HLL, ended 0.87 per cent lower to Rs 131.75.

The few notable gainers were Zee Telefilms, up 0.83 per cent to Rs 152.55, HPCL, up 0.80 per cent to Rs 327.40, Cipla, up 0.77 per cent to Rs 276.45, Hero Honda, up 0.74 per cent to Rs 551.20 and ITC, up 0.66 per cent to Rs 1,478.80.

Bajaj Auto was up 0.46 per cent to Rs 1,126 after the company announced impressive Q4 results. Bajaj Auto said its profit after deferred tax adjustments jumped 4.2 per cent in Q4 ended March 2005 to Rs 204.63 crore from Rs 196.29 crore in Q4 March 2004.

Total income (net of excise) climbed 31.5 per cent to Rs 1,773.55 crore from Rs 1,347.84 crore.