Sensex trips 135 pts, investors book profit

Mumbai, Oct 19: The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) after a lacklusture performance, tripped 135 points to settle at 12,723.59, as investors booked profit and tried to overcome the Bajaj Auto losses yesterday.

Investors are extremely cautious and are not willing to take any chances, the hype that was generated by Infosys and TCS got a big shock after Bajaj Auto showed second quarter losses yesterday.

Today though the markets opened in the positive by 23 points, and also touched a high of 12, 925.60, it soon declined to a low of 12,654.98.

Experts believe, now the investors are smart and they are not going to invest unless they are fully sure of the respective numbers, hence it is likely that 13k figure could become a reality only after second quarter results are fully declared, that is by the end of this month.

The breadth in the broader market was again negative with 1,421 declines as against 999 avances out of total 2502 scrips taht traded the counter.

BSE today clocked a turnover of Rs 3480 crore.

All the sectoral indices today closed in the red, primarily led by Bankex which was down by 1.17 and was followed by Auto and FMCG down 1.16 per cent each, other culprits were Technology sector down by 1.06 per cent, Helath Care index and Capital Goods both down by 1.02 each.

The Asian markets were mixed, Nikkei 225 index finished 101.64 points or 0.61 per cent down, to 16,551.36, whereas, the Hang Seng index dropped 61.12 points or 0.34 per cent to settle at 17,986.97.

Meanwhile, the crude oil price rebounded from near its lowest level this year to around US Dollar 58 a barrelon mark as traders reeled from a sharp rise in already bulging US crude stocks and OPEC ministers gathered for their first output cut since 2004. US light crude for November rose 23 cents to US Dollar 57.88 a barrel.

Major gainers on the BSE-30 index were Grasim Industries up by 1.47 per cent to Rs 2,20.35, Gujarat Ambuja up by 0.79 per cent to Rs 120.65, Hero Honda up by 0.33 per cent to Rs 751.00 and Tata Motors up by 0.20 per cent to Rs 889.85.

Besides the losers were Bajaj auto down by 3.79 per cent to Rs 2,788.95, Ranbaxy down by 3.08 per cent to Rs 411.00, Reliance Communications down by 2.63 per cent to Rs 368.05, L&T down by 2.13 per cent to Rs 1,27.35, Satyam Computers down by 2.10 per cent to 440.80, ITC down by 1.93 per cent to Rs 190.75, Reliance Energy down by 1.82 per cent to Rs 452.40, HDFC down by 1.71 per cent to Rs 1,455.45, HDFC bank down by 1.62 per cent to Rs 964.50 and Tata Steel down by 1.38 per cent to Rs 501.70.

UNI

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