Mumbai: Stocks suffered a setback pulling the Sensex down by 46 points at close in extremely low volume at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (July 13, 2004) on selling pressure from operators participated in the trading session.

However, jobbers, day traders and arbitrageurs boycotted trading to protest the Budget proposal to impose a 0.15 per cent transaction tax on securities even as Finance Minister P Chidambaram yesterday promised to re-look at the proposed transaction tax proposal.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened on a firm note at 4961.87 and later fluctuated in a fairly wide range of 4978.49 and 4878.06 before ending the day at 4898.99 as against last close of 4944.54, a net fall of 45.55 points or 0.92 per cent.

Attributing early price rally to the announcement by IT bellwether Infosys Technologies of encouraging first quarter results, market sources said the volume was adversely affected in the absence of agitating players, which contribute large chunk of daily turnover.

Operators, which maintained low profile during major part of the session, later pressed sales at the fag end and availed the opportunity to square up positions.

Domestic Financial Institutions and Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were conspicuous by their absence.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram is meeting broker representatives at New Delhi this evening on the issue of transaction tax.

Tata Motors, Tisco, SBI, RIL, MUL, ICICI Bank, Grasim, Hero Honda and GACL recorded sharp falls.

However, Infosys Tech, Satyam Comp, BHEL, REL and HDFC closed with handsome gains.