Saturday, April 9 2005 13:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The market failed to sustain the rally witnessed at the last weekend and slipped by 1.9 per cent in the week despite positive activity by institutional investors and easing crude oil prices.

Last week's recovery was short-lived as operators and retail investors once again reduced their participation ahead of announcement of quarterly results during the month. They seemed to be in no mood to create any fresh positions due to nervousness over financial results by software companies.

In the week to April 9, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index fluctuated in a wide range of 6649.42 and 6456.84 before ending the week at 6479.54 as against last weekend's close of 6605.04, netting a fall of 125.50 points.

The market was dragged in the last two sessions of the week despite fairly good fund inflows. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) reported net investments of Rs 502.40 crore in the initial four days of the week while domestic funds made net purchases of Rs 120.20 crore during the same period.

Market participants were unwilling to take any risk in the prevailing situation despite confidence expressed by the Government in managing inflationary pressure with high oil prices. The Government also ruled out any immediate raise in petrol and diesel prices as well as hike in interest rates in the medium term.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram asked the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the BSE to chalk out a detailed road map to prevent manipulation on regional stock exchanges and also warned of stern action against debarred brokers playing behind the scenes.

Oil price, which fell from the record high of $ 58.28 a barrel to below $ 54 at the weekend, continued to cause concern among investors as it was still considered to be on the higher side.

Reports that the Government is studying a proposal to raise FII limit in public sector banks to 24 per cent from the current 20 per cent also failed to have any impact on the bourses.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index fell back by 63.04 points to end the week at 3480.32 from the previous close of 3543.36.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply down at 869.78 and 330.84 at the weekend compared to the last weekend's close of 883.05 and 336.04 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index dropped by 34.78 points to close the week at 2751.92 from preceding weekend's close of 2786.70 and the Dollex-30 ended the week at 1215.38 from 1239.48.

On the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty and the S&P CNX Defty dipped by 36.46 points and 28.50 points to finish the week at 2031.20 and 1609.45 as against last weekend's close of 2067.65 and 1637.95 respectively. The CNX Nifty Junior softened by 72.95 points to conclude the week at 4269.90 from 4342.85 at the previous weekend.

During the week, the volume of business on the BSE and the NSE was relatively low at Rs 9,984 crore and Rs 21,271 crore compared to last week's turnover of Rs 10,318 crore and Rs 22,359 respectively.