Sensex tumbles by 145.15 points late profit-booking

Mumbai, May 24: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index today settled with a sharp loss of 145.15 points at 14,218.11, following a late session sell-off in index pivotals due to profit booking on negative global cues.

During intra-day, it had touched a high of 14,389.66 and a low of 14,174.05 after opening weaker at 14,344.70.

The broader National Stock Exchange (NSE) 50-stock Nifty Index also tanked by 41.30 points to settle at 4,204.90 from its previous close of 4,246.20 points.

It had opened at 4,246.20 and touched a high of 4,250.85 and a low of 4,189.05 during intra-day trade.

''The market is worried about big initial public offerings (IPOs) lined up from next month onwards. It is believed to be the highest ever capital mobilisation. We feel that a lot of liquidity will be sucked off from the secondary markets making its way to the primary market. Although the exact size and date of the IPO of DLF and the follow-on issue of ICICI Bank are yet to be announced, there is concern that these offers will compete head to head for investors fund of over Rs 24,000 crore next month,'' dealers lamented.

Meanwhile, the total turnover on BSE dipped to Rs 4,343 crore, lower than the over Rs 5,000 crore clocked in the past few trading sessions, market analysts noted and added that the market breadth, which reflects the overall health of the market, settled weak with over 1.5 losers for every gainer, after selling continued in small- and mid-cap stocks. 1,564 shares declined while 1,017 advanced, and 89 remained unchanged. Among the Sensex pack, 24 declined while the rest advanced.

The major losers for the day included Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Steel, Reliance Communications (RCom) and Bharti Airtel, SBI, HDFC Bank, HDFC and ICICI Bank.

The prominent gainers include NTPC, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) major Hindustan UniLever (HUL), information technology majors Infosys and Satyam Computers.

Technically, the Sensex has strong support at 14,000 level and on the upside faces a stiff resistance at 14,600 level. Similarly, the Nifty has support of 4,180 on the downside, while on the upside there is a near term resistance at 4,300, technical analysts noted.

The Asian markets were trading weak, while all the European market declined. The Hang Seng index lost 0.22 per cent while the Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.05 per cent. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.54 per cent.

US indices slipped yesterday, surrendering earlier gains as investors showed some caution after the Dow industrials and S&P 500 index briefly touched record territory. While the Dow Jones shed 14 points at 13,526, the Nasdaq Composite was down 11 points to close at 2,577.

Oil prices inched higher after a US government report showed gasoline stocks rose unexpectedly, but still not enough to dispel supply fears at the kick-off of the summer driving season, experts explained.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 26 cents to settle at USD 65.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for July delivery climbed USD 1.08 to settle at USD 70.60 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London, while gasoline futures slid 0.41 cent to USD 2.3104 a gallon.

Gold inched up in thin trade today, while Tokyo futures hardly moved ahead of the release of US data, which should offer new leads to the dollar and precious metals. Spot gold edged up to USD 661.70/662.20 an ounce from USD 660.60/662.10 late in New York yesterday.

The key April 2008 gold futures contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange was unchanged at 2,611 yen a gram despite gains in New York's Comex market. Silver inched up to USD 13.05/13.08 an ounce from USD 12.99/13.03 an ounce yesterday.

India's wholesale price inflation rate is forecast at 5.24 per cent for the 12 months to May 12, the lowest since early September last year, as per analysts poll. The data will be released around noon tomorrow. Annual inflation in the previous week was 5.44 per cent.

It may be recollected here that the annual rate had hit 6.69 per cent on January 27 this year, its highest in more than two years, but has since moderated as the central bank tightened policy and the government cut duties on a range of items to rein in prices, experts observed.

In early morning trade, the partially convertible Rupee was at 40.56/57 per US dollar, largely steady with yesterday's close of 40.550/565. Analysts said that the market is expecting USD 4 billion to USD 5 billion of foreign money to flow into Indian IPOs and equities by the end of June, adding to the Rupee's strength.

The RBI bought USD 2.3 billion earlier in March this year in a bid to stem the Rupee's rise. While intervention seemed to have been less aggressive since mid-March, the central bank has been active this week, specially as the Rupee approached 40.50 levels.

Experts pointed out that the Rupee also came under pressure after oil rose above USD 70 today on worries over Iran's nuclear dispute with the West and thin gasoline stockpiles in the US ahead of peak summer demand.

UNI WD OBB AG1803 The annual monsoon is predicted to strike the Kerala coast Sunday, 27 May 2007, four days ahead of its normally scheduled date of arrival on 1 June 2007. From Kerala the monsoon travels upwards to the parched central Indian plans and is expected to bring rains to New Delhi by the end of June.

UNI