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Speculative selling hammers down pivotals; Nifty down 12 points, 855.35

Pivotals declined sharply on speculative selling pressure at the National Stock Exchange in a dull trading today.

Reflecting the weak trend, S&P CNX Nifty Index opened at 866.50, touched the day's high of 866.50, fell to the day's low of 854.30 before closing at 855.35 points, showing a net loss of 11.90 points from the previous close of 867.25 points.

The CNX Nifty Junior closed lower by 8.65 points at 1433.35 points as against the previous close of 1442.00. S&P CNX Defty finished lower by 10.05 points to 699.75 points from Friday's close of 709.80 points.

The S&P CNX-500 and CNX Midcap-200 eased by 6.21 and 1.94 points to 582.33 and 517.63 points as against the previous close of 588.54 and 519.57 points.

The exchange witnessed 356 scrips advances, 611 decline and 97 remaining unchanged. 19 securities hit their price bands today.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the day was Rs 9.49 billion from the trading of 48.65 million shares in 157,998 trades.

Reliance posted the highest turnover of Rs 1.14 billion followed by ITC Rs 1.10 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 1.02 billion, SBI Rs 768.6 million and Zee Telefilms Rs 645.6 million.

Other actively traded scrips were Pentafour Software (Rs 558.8 million), Telco (Rs 538 million), ACC (Rs 248 million), Tata Tea (Rs 248 million), Tisco (Rs 258.4 million), Glaxo (Rs 218.4 million), L&T (Rs 172.4 million), BHEL (Rs 150.6 million), HCL-HP (Rs 123.3 million), MTNL (Rs 110.5 million), Sterlite (Rs 88 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 81.1 million), LML (Rs 72.8 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 72.8 million), ICICI (Rs 65.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 58.4 million), Nestle (Rs 51.9 million), Nestle (Rs 51.9 million), Grasim (Rs 51.6 million) and NIIT (Rs 47.7 million).

Among the gainers, ABB closed at Rs 525.20 (Rs 508.85), Grasim Rs 164.70 (Rs 161), Asian Paints Rs 298.85 (Rs 295.40), Ranbaxy Rs 523.25 (Rs 517.20) and ACC Rs 1002.90 (992.65). The losers included Arvind Mills Rs 30.85 (33.25), IDBI Rs 39.75 (Rs 41.95), Cochin Refineries Rs 133 (Rs 139.55), BHEL Rs 254.30 (Rs 266.15) and L&T Rs 151.60 (Rs 158.30).

The foreign institutional investors were net buyers, registering net buying of Rs 28.3 million. The domestic institutional investors and mutual funds too reported net buying worth Rs 41.8 million.

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 5.11 billion. The 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 600 million at a weighted yield of 11.34 per cent. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 1999 was traded for Rs 450 million at a weighted yield of 9.45 per cent. Zero coupon debentures of Reliance Capital Limited maturing in 2002 were traded for Rs 660 million at a weighted yield of 15.90 per cent.

UNI

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