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FII selling pressure nudges pivotals down; Nifty down over 7 points, 835.65

After moving in a narrow range, pivotals declined marginally towards close on speculative selling by foreign institutional investors and local operators on the National Stock Exchange today.

Mirroring the low sentiment, the S&P CNX Nifty moved down by 7.90 points to 835.65 points from 843.55 points of the previous day. CNX Nifty Junior slid by 14.35 points to 1441.05 points from 1455.40 points and S&P CNX Defty dropped by 6.35 points, to 684.40 points from 690.75 points.

The S&P CNX 500 edged down by 3.28 per cent to 578.15 points from 581.43 points while CNX Midcap 200 declined by 4.37 points to 511.42 from 515.79 points.

The total turnover, involving 51.96 million shares in 174,447 trades was Rs 14.88 billion and the debentures traded value was Rs 5.82 million. About 355 securities advanced, 532 declined and 89 remained unchanged.

The net selling by the FIIs were worth Rs 10.8 million and the net purchase by dometic institutions stood worth Rs 63.9 million.

The top gainers were: Castrol 3.55 per cent to Rs 610.80, Hindalco 2.46 per cent to Rs 529.80, Ranbaxy 2.37 per cent to Rs 549.85, M&M 2.24 per cent to Rs 159.45 and Cochin Refineries 1.81 per cent to Rs 145.90.

The top losers were Telco 7.99 per cent to Rs 112.85, ICICI 4.65 per cent to Rs 45.10, Grasim 4.50 per cent to Rs 144.40, Tisco 4.32 per cent to Rs 78.60 and L&T 3.73 per cent to Rs 153.50.

ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.98 billion, followed by Satyam Computer (Rs 2.59 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 2.10 billion), SBI New (Rs 1.09 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.02 billion), Castrol (Rs 702.8 million), Reliance (Rs 642.5 million), HCL-HP (Rs 329.7 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 319.5 million), NIIT (Rs 270.5 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 247.7 million), Telco (Rs 237.5 million) and BHEL (Rs 178 million).

The other actively traded counters were: MTNL (Rs 147.6 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 131.3 million), L&T (Rs 120 million), ACC (Rs 116.5 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 105.7 million), Tata Tea (Rs 98.7 million), Tisco (Rs 75.3 million) and Bajaj Auto (Rs 74.6 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 2.06 billion. The 91-day treasury bill maturing on January 9, 1999 was traded for Rs 441.3 million at a weighted yield of 10.05 per cent. The 11.98 per cent government loan maturing in 2004 was traded for Rs 300 million at a weighted yield of 12.06 per cent. The 12.30 per cent SLR bond of Industrial Investment Bank of India maturing in 2008 was traded for Rs 20 million at a yield of 12.36 per cent. The total turnover in debentures was Rs 4.5 million.

UNI