Thursday, August 18 2005 20:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (August 18, 2005) turned sharply weak after hitting a new high of 7921.39 at the stock exchange, Mumbai (BSE) due to heavy profit-selling at higher level and ended 48.20 points lower at 7811.33.

In highly volatile activity, the BSE benchmark 30-share sensitive index opened sharply higher at 7902.84 as against the previous close of 7859.53. Thereafter, it fluctuated in the wide range of around 130 points between 7921.39 and 7791.91, before closing at 7811.33, showing a sharp loss of 0.61 per cent over the last close.

The initial firmness was due to frantic buying activity by Foreign Insitutional Investors (FIIs) and was well supported by domestic funds on reports that Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said on Wednesday (August 10, 2005) that India's GDP growth was expected to be better than 6.9 per cent of last year and added that reforms were on track which was a step that accelerates growth and investment, a broker said.

Later, shares met with heavy selling at higher level in the form of correction and generally closed with notable losses.

However, market analysts said the market was bound to recover sharply as FIIs, especially from Japan, Taiwan and Korea were still active and the sensex could touch the 8000 mark in this month itself.

While, Mutual Funds made net purchases of about Rs 1063 crore in four sessions from August 10 to 16, FIIs pumped in Rs 292 crore on Friday and Monday after pulling out little over Rs 100 crore on August 10 and 11, brokers said.

The weak spots were Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Satyam computer, Hindalco, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), Infosys tech, L&T, Ranbaxy, State Bank of India (SBI), Tata Steel, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Reliance Energy Limited (REL), ITC, Bharti and Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC).

However, TCS, Wipro, Tata Power, ACC, Grasim, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Hero Honda closed better.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index declined by 22.90 points to 4188.98 from the last close of 4211.88.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted weak at 1012.22 and 386.88 at close compared to previous close of 1017.75 and 389.17 respectively. The BSE-500 Index fell by 17.37 points to 3258.95 from yesterday's (August 17, 2005) close of 3276.32 and the Dollex-30 ended weak at 1472.25 from the last close of 1482.01.