Tuesday, April 5 2005 19:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Pulled down by banking and auto shares, the Sensex today (Apr 5, 2005) fell by 54 points to close at 6550.29 on the Bombay Stock Exchange due to hectic selling by retail investors and operators and negligible FII activity.

Brokers said market players indulged in heavy sell-off to safeguard their positions ahead of the forthcoming corporate results.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share sensitive index opened marginally better at 6611.53 against the previous close of 6604.42, and after moving up temporarily to 6621.91 fell on heavy sell-off.

After reaching an intra-day low of 6532.94, it closed at 6550.29, showing a loss of 54.13 points or 0.82 per cent over the last close.

Among bank shares, SBI fell sharply by 21.30 to 645.20, HDFC Bank by 9.90 to 542.20, Corporation Bank by 9.35 to 362.05 and Bank of Baroda by 10.70 to 207.00.

In automobile segment, Tata Motors fell by 18.25 to 406.20 and Maruti by 17.75 to 402.35.

GACL, Maruti, Ranbaxy, Tata Power, Wipro, Grasim, REL, RIL, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Cipla, HDFC, Hindalco, HPCL, Infosystch and Satyam Computer also met with heavy selling and closed sharply weak.

However, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, ONGC, ICICI Bank and Bharti closed better on good support.