Mumbai: Led by a sharp decline in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) giant Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL), share prices washed out initial gains and landed in negative territory for the second successive day on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (April 7, 2004), pushing the Sensex down by another 7.29 points to close at 5815.13.

Among the top heavyweight counters, HLL suffered the most on heavy offloading by domestic funds, while other index-based stocks like BHEL, Dr Reddy's Lab, Bajaj Auto, HPCL, ONGC, Reliance Energy, SBI, Tata Motors and Tisco also eased, causing the index to fall, dealers said.

Some of the IT stock, however, showed some sign of steadiness on news that the Board of Directors of the Infosys Tech has decided to meet on 13th April to consider the issue of bonus shares/stock split.

The BSE-30 share Sensitive Index resumed slightly better at 5827.07 as against yesterday's close of 5822.42 and moved irregularly in a range between 5860.67 and 5774.88 before concluding at 5815.13, a net loss of 0.13 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index also eased by 1.10 points to end at 3091.66 from previous close of 3092.76.

After picking up shares worth Rs 417 crore on April 5, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) extended their buying spree today and made purchases selectively.

Power Trading Corporation of India Ltd (PTC) which was listed today, opened at 31.10 as against issue price of 16.00 and moved in a wide range between 46.35 and 27.75 before closing at 44.65, a hefty gain of 179.06 per cent as against the issue price.