Sensex dipped by 33.78 points at 15,665.55

Mumbai, July 26: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex today plunged by 33.78 points at 15,665.55 from it's previous close of 15,699.33, after opening higher at 15,768.28 as profit booking emerged in mid-afternoon trade.

Similarly, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty Index also slipped by 13.40 points during intra-day at 4,575.30 from it's previous close of 4,588.70, after opening firmer at 4,593.10.

''The market slipped in the red in mid-afternoon trade, as profit-booking emerged. It was firm for the earlier part of the day following a healthy rollover of derivative positions from this month's series to next month's series so far. It saw a bout of volatility. Pharma and information technology (IT) stocks gained on news based buying,'' analysts said The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong as small- and mid-cap stocks saw buying interest. On the BSE, there were over 1.5 gainers for every loser since 1,517 shares advanced as compared to 947 that declined, while 91 remained unchanged. The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 2,740 crore so far and among the Sensex pack, 16 gained, while the rest declined.

The gainers so far included Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Satyam Computers, Reliance Industries (RIL), NDTV, IFCI, Bombay Dyeing and Hitachi Home&Life Solutions (India).

The losers included ACC, Ambuja Cements, Grasim and UltraTech Cement Company.

Meanwhile, Japanese shares fell today. Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.88 per cent at 17,702.09, while Hang Seng gained 0.30 per cent to 23,432.49. The Shanghai Composite Index opened higher and hit 4,357.796.

Wall Street rose yesterday. The Dow Jones gained 68.12 points, or 0.50 per cent, to 13,785.07. The Standard&Poor's 500 index climbed 7.05 points, or 0.47 per cent, to 1,518.09, and the Nasdaq Composite index advanced 8.31 points, or 0.31 per cent, to 2,648.17.

Crude oil rose today, for the second day in New York after a report showed US oil inventories fell for a third week and gasoline demand was near a one-year high. Crude oil for September 2007 delivery gained as much as 50 cents, or 0.7 per cent, to USD 76.38 in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at USD 76.17 in Singapore.

UNI