A day of lull, Sensex retreats by 267 points

Mumbai, Jul 21: After a day that delighted the investors, the BSE Sensitive Index (Sensex) tripped 267 points to 10,085.91 as Indian markets tracked the global weakness.

Another factor to have have taken the steam out of the investors, is an assumed fear of Reserve Bank of India increasing the reverse repo rates to counter the rising inflation, some time soon.

The Reserve Bank of India will review the monetary policy on Tuesday July 25, 2006, and market men expect the Central bank to raise its key short-term interest rate, reverse repo rate - for the third time this year.

The Sensex today swung 301 points touching a high of 10,336.38 and a low of 10,035.24 in the intra-day trade.

Major Asian benchmark indices too declined today, largely on account of declining US economic growth and also the west Asia crisis, with no signs of amelioration in sight.

All the BSE sectoral indices closed in the red today. The losers were led by FMCG down 3.63 per cent to 1850.34, Capital Goods was down by 3.22 per cent to 6370.08 points and were followed by all other indices mostly down between 1.89 to 2.96 per cent.

The major gainers in the market were - Ranbaxy up by 1.10 to 353.15, Cipla up by 1.10 per cent to 220.15, and Reliance Energy was up by 0.51 per cent to Rs 439.30. Besides, the losers today were - L&T was down by 5.23 per cent to 2022.35, Grasim down by 4.75 per cent to Rs 1883.20, ITC was down 4.43 per cent to Rs 167.20, Reliance Communications was down by 4.39 per cent to Rs 238.30, and Hindalco was down 4.11 per cent to Rs 157.45, NTPC was down by 4.10 per cent to Rs 157.45 and Gujarat Ambuja was down by 3.72 per cent to Rs 99.60.

The breadth in the broader market was in the 1850 advancs as against 535 declines out of total 2468 scrips traded on the BSE.

UNI