Mumbai: Share prices continued to lean down at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Oct 21, 2004) due to heavy profit booking by operators as well as investors ahead of long holidays and the Sensex declined by 31 points to close at 5641.06 as against the previous close of 5673.02.

The market will remain closed tomorrow, October 22 on account of 'Dussehra'.

Prices, after a better start, moved up further marginally on increased buying. However, later prices declined sharply on emergence of heavy profit-selling and closed with sharp losses.

Mirroring the market trend, the 30-scrip sensitive index started marginally higher at 5680.44 and rose further to a high of 5685.18. Thereafter, it fell sharply to a low of 5617.37 and closed at 5641.06, showing a fall of 0.56 per cent over the previous close.

Indicating the fall in the index, out of 30 scrips, 24 declined, while only 6 managed to close firm.

Among the losers, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Bharat Tele, BHEL, Cipla, Dr Reddy, Grasim, Guj Amb Cem, HDFC Bank, Hero Honda, Hind Petro, Hindalco, ITC, L&T, Maruti Udyog, ONGC, Ranbaxy, Reliance, Reliance Energy, Satyam Comp, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Wipro and Zee Tele were prominent.

However, HDFC, Hind Lever, ICICI Bank and Infosystech found good support and closed firm.