Wednesday, November 9 2005 17:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The stock market gave up early gains and ended today (Nov 9, 2005) marginally down by nine points at 8308.78, snapping a five-day winning streak, reacting to heavy selling pressure from domestic funds amid sustained Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) inflows.

Driven by heavy net investments of Rs 531 crore on Monday by FII, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) had risen to the intra-day high of 8405.46 in the first half of session.

The Sensex later fell sharply to the day's low of 8269.09 due to sudden selling spree before ending the day at 8308.78 as against yesterday's (Nov 8, 2005)close of 8317.80, a net fall of 9.02 points or 0.11 per cent.

The Sensex had risen by over 632 points or 8.23 per cent in the past five sessions between October 31 and November 8.

Domestic mutual funds and operators reportedly booked profits at higher levels despite sustained purchases by FIIs, which reported fairly heavy net investments of Rs 966 crore in the first three trading days of November.

FIIs were believed to be continued buyers in the Cash as well as the Futures during the trading while local funds and retailers took benefits of higher price levels, brokers said.

The market dropped sharply after testing 8400 level even as Finance Minister P Chidambaram today indicated disinvestments of a small portion of equity in profit making public sector enterprises other than the `Navratnas'.

However, Dr Reddy's Lab stole the limelight on news that the company is acquiring Roche's API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) business in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The downslide was substantially mitigated by marked gains in heavyweights like State Bank of India (SBI), ITC, Dr Reddy's Lab, Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) HDFC and Bharti Tele-Venture.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index eased by 4.40 points to 4374.16 from previous close of 4378.56.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted slightly down at 1050.28 and 381.79 at close compared to previous close of 1051.59 and 380.69 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index moved down by 3.80 points to 3359.77 from yesterday's close of 3363.57 and the Dollex-30 ended lower at 1489.41 from 1484.87.

The volume of business was relatively low at Rs 2688.25 crore compared to Rs 2881.61 crore yesterday. SBI clocked the highest turnover of Rs 208.27 crore followed by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) (Rs 174.37 crore), Suzlon Energy (Rs 150.62 crore), Titan Industries (Rs 113.54 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 89.62 crore).

Infosys Technologies fell back by 31.90 to 2619.25, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd by 18.65 to 1456.50, Wipro by 6.40 to 385.40, Tata Motor by 4.75 to 496.15, Satyam Computer by 5.50 to 636.90, ONGC by 10.30 to 953.60, REL by 3.50 to 533.85, Hindalco by 1.45 to 123.75, HDFC Bank by 7.05 to 631.45, Grasim by 5.60 to 1249.05 BHEL by 2.55 to 1203.90, Tata Power by 9.80 to 423.40, Ranbaxy by 9.25 to 373.85, NTPC by 2.45 to 99.90, Hero Honda by 9.90 to 778.75 and Cipla by 1.40 to 376.55.

However, SBI firmed up by 13.20 to 846.60, RIL by 1.30 to 791.55, Tata Steel by 1.20 to 363.45, Bajaj Auto by 22.00 to 1843.15, Dr Reddy's Lab by 43.55 to 929.85, ITC by 1.50 to 128.70, Maruti Udyog by 2.45 to 575.60, L&T by 1.30 to 1541.25 HLL by 2.70 to 172.55, HDFC by 9.45 to 1049.90, ACC by 7.45 to 484.95 and Bharti Tele by 3.80 to 343.30.