Key indices slump for 7th straight week

Mumbai, Jul 5: Extending the downward trend for the seventh straight week, Sensex dropped 348.22 points, while Nifty tumbled by 120.65 points in the week ended on Saturday, July 5 amid a host of negative cues.

The key indices of the stock market even slumped to a 15-month low on political developments over the Indo-US nuclear deal, record high oil prices and spiralling inflation, which fuelled sustained selling during the week. Though, market witnessed short covering for a few sessions it was not enough to cover the earlier losses, marketmen observed. Sensex lost 2.52 per cent to close the week at 13,454, while the S &P CNX Nifty lost 120.65 points or 2.91 per cent to 4,016. The benchmark index of BSE had lost 7752.77 points, about 37 per cent from a record high of 21,206.77, hit on January 11, 2008. The BSE Mid-Cap index declined 280.51 points or 5 per cent to 5,278.24 and Small-Cap slumped 488.40 points or 7 per cent to 6,449.67 in the week. The two indices had slumped to 52-week lows of 4970.47 and 6938.07 respectively during the week.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) outflow in calendar year 2008 amounted to Rs 26571 crore till July 3, 2008. Mutual funds bought shares worth a net Rs 347.49 crore in the first three days this month. They had pumped Rs 3179.20 crore in Indian equity market in June 2008.

Reliance Industries (RIL) fell 3.80 per cent to Rs 2,099 in the week.

Reliance Communications (RCom) declined 7.46 per cent to Rs 438.20. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 381.05.

Tata Motors plunged 10.74 per cent to Rs 400.85. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 383 during the week. Banking and financial stocks counter were active during the week as following the key rate hike by the Reserve Bank most of the lenders increased their lending rate, including home and corporate loan interest rate by 50-100 basis points.

ICICI Bank shares lost 8.03 per cent to Rs 600.65, hitting a 52-week low of Rs 551.30 during the week. State Bank of India fell 2.88 per cent to Rs 1127.50, coming off a 52-week low of Rs 1007.

However, ONGC gained 5.56 per cent to Rs 876.30, after it had reportedly discovered a new oil field in the Farsi oil bloc of the Persian Gulf. ONGC will undertake the development of the newly discovered field on determining that the development is economically feasible.

Larsen &Toubro rose 4.97 per cent to Rs 2379.85. The stock came off a 52-week low of Rs 2100 during the week. Bharat Heavy Electricals advanced 8.68 per cent to Rs 1500.30 after securing an order exceeding Rs 2080 crore for a 400-megawatt thermal power project in Syria.

UNI