Profit booking culls gains

STOCKS REPORT

Investors booked profit ahead of the weekend resulting in the benchmark BSE Sensex ending 54 points down to close at 6853.73. From an intra-day high of 6948.54, the Sensex slipped in afternoon trades on profit booking in index heavyweights.

However, metal stocks ended higher on renewed buying. The Nifty shed 13.40 points to close at 2154, coming off from its day's high of 2182.10.

"Markets are expected to remain range bound in absence of any fresh triggers. However, the undertone is still bullish as the current rally is strongly driven by strong liquidity provided by the foreign institutional investors (FIIs), said one analyst.

The FIIs were net buyers to the tune of Rs 1,310 crore on Thursday. They have been net buyers since the beginning of the month.

On Wednesday, the FIIs bought Indian equities worth Rs 793 crore, much higher than their Tuesday's inflow of Rs 498.30 crore. The FII inflow for March 2005 so far has reached Rs 5,565 crore.

Analysts said, a new set of foreign funds recently registered with Sebi are aggressively looking at increasing their exposure in Indian equities.

Steel stocks ended higher in a rather subdued market. As a result, the BSE Metal index was the biggest gainer among the indices to end 1.31 per cent higher at 6904.02.

Essar Steel stock was up 7.95 per cent to Rs 55, Bhushan Steel was up 9.26 per cent to Rs 191.70, Ispat Industries was up 4.85 per cent to Rs 28.10, Tata Steel was up 2.24 per cent to Rs 440.80 and Steel Authority of India was up 2.09 per cent to Rs 65.85. Uttam Galva Steel was frozen at 20 per cent upper circuit at Rs 63.15.

Among index heavyweights, ITC was down 2.52 per cent to Rs 1,345.05, ONGC was down 2.07 per cent to Rs 911.60, Reliance Industries was down 1.06 per cent to Rs 587.65, State Bank of India was down 0.78 per cent to Rs 736.70 and ICICI Bank was down 0.73 per cent to Rs 389.50.

Pharma stocks witnessed profit booking at higher levels after trading higher during the week. Dr Reddy's was down 1.98 per cent to Rs 743.20, Cipla was down 1.62 per cent to Rs 280 and Ranbaxy was down 1.23 per cent to Rs 1,069.50.

HDFC was down 2.33 per cent to Rs 800.60. The stock declined after a block deal of 5.75 lakh shares was reported on the counter at Rs 820 per share. Over 7.62 lakh HDFC shares were traded on BSE on Friday.

Tata Motors declined from Rs 472.60 to Rs 459.15 before settling at Rs 461.75, down 1.31 per cent from its previous close.

Over 9.45 lakh Tata Motors shares were traded on BSE on Friday.