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Equities decline as bulls outsmart FIIs; Nifty down 19 points, 908.40

Despite good buying support from foreign and domestic institutional investors, share prices declined moderately on heavy selling pressure by bull operators on the last day of the current settlement, on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the downtrend, the S&P CNX nifty index dipped by 19.50 points to 908.40 points from 927.90 points of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior also slid by 14.40 points to 1543.40 from 1557.80 while S&P CNX Defty went down by 15 points to 741.25 points from 756.25 points. The S&P CNX 500 index was lower by 12.47 points to 622.17 points from 634.64 points and CNX Midcap 200 index declined by 8.32 points to 549.53 points from 557.85 points of the previous day.

The total turnover in 222,281 trades, involving 67.90 million shares was Rs 18.32 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 1008 million.

There were 294 gainers, 715 losers and 86 steady scrips. 51 securities hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors today purchased shares for Rs 505.63 million against their lower sales of Rs 505.12 million indicating an inflow of foreign exchange to the tune of Rs 510,000 lakh. Domestic institutions and mututal funds were also invested in the market with their net buyers of Rs 31.15 million.

Grasim registered the highest gain with 6.37 per cent to Rs 173.55, followed by TVS Suzuki 4.25 per cent to Rs 557.75, East India Hotels 1.69 per cent to Rs 238.05 and India Hotels 1.26 per cent to Rs 401.50.

ICICI suffered the highest loss of 7.97 per cent to Rs 54.30, followed by Ashok Leyland 7.72 per cent to Rs 25.10, Indo Gulf 7.25 per cent to Rs 30.70, Indian Rayon 7.13 per cent to Rs 116.55 and IDBI 7.08 per cent to Rs 49.25.

Satyam Computers topped the turnover list with Rs 4.39 billion. ITC (Rs 2.38 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.88 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.61 billion), Reliance (Rs 1.06 billion), SBI New (Rs 799.2 million), HCL-HP (Rs 768.6 million), MTNL (Rs 593.9 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 329.8 million), BHEL (Rs 271.5 million), L&T (Rs 243.2 million), Castrol (Rs 232.9 million) and ACC (Rs 195.7 million).

The other counters which witnessed hectic activity were Tata Tea (Rs 183.2 million), NIIT (Rs 180.9 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 167.9 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 162.6 million), Silverline (Rs 158.3 million), BFL Software (Rs 153.3 million), Telco (Rs 120.6 million) and Hindustan Lever (Rs 113.9 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed increased activity with trades worth Rs 5.38 billion. The newly auctioned 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 650 million at a weighted yield of 11.39 per cent. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 2000 (Series III) was traded for Rs 1.95 billion at a weighted yield of 11.44 per cent. The 91 day treasury bill maturing on December 26 was traded for Rs 290 million at a weighted yield of 9.48 per cent.

UNI